Evangelist Franklin Graham has encouraged Americans to support Donald Trump and Mike Pence and "move forward together as a country" after actress Meryl Streep used the Golden Globes stage to blast the President-elect.
"The news this morning on the Golden Globes isn't about which films won or lost, but about Meryl Streep's 6-minute speech condemning Donald J. Trump," the leader of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan's Purse wrote in a Monday Facebook post. "I say, let's get behind our new President-elect and Vice President-elect Mike Pence and move forward together as a country. They've already made a lot of progress before even officially taking office, and let's pray they continue to make positive changes for the future of America."
While picking up the Cecil B DeMille lifetime achievement award at the 74th annual Golden Globes, Streep said she was "stunned" when Trump appeared to mock a disabled reporter, Serge Kovaleski of the New York Times, at a press conference in late 2015.
Streep said Trump's behavior "sank its hooks in my heart" and said she "still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie. It was real life."
"And this instinct to humiliate when it's modeled by someone in the public platform by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody's life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing," she said, and asked for a "principled press to hold Trump [accountable]" and to call him out "for every outrage."
While Streep's speech was met with applause and support from her peers, it didn't sit well with a number of conservatives, including radio and television host Sean Hannity, who tweeted, "This is exactly why Hwood is DYING, what a bunch of hypocrites. Sex, violence, and drivel rule hwood. Turning the channel."
Trump also took to Twitter to slam the actress, calling her an "overrated Hillary flunky" who "lost big".
"For the 100th time, I never 'mocked' a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him 'groveling' when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!" he wrote.
Earlier, Trump explained he was not aware that Kovaleski has a disability that visibly affects the movement of his arms.
"I was never mocking anyone," Trump told the Times on Monday. "I was calling into question a reporter who had gotten nervous because he had changed his story. People keep saying I intended to mock the reporter's disability, as if Meryl Streep and others could read my mind, and I did no such thing."
Streep was not the only celebrity to use the Golden Globes stage to slam Trump. Host Jimmy Fallon called the show "one of the few places left where America still honors the popular vote" and compared the President-elect to the villainous "Games of Thrones" King Joffrey.
