Robert De Niro sends letter to Meryl Streep praising her Trump takedown

Robert De Niro once expressed his desire to punch Donald Trump in the face, so it stands to reason that he would wholeheartedly approve of his old chum Meryl Streep’s message during her Golden Globes speech on Sunday night.

In fact, De Niro sent Streep a letter following her withering takedown of the president-elect’s behaviour, as she received the Cecil B. DeMille Award – a gong De Niro himself won in 2011.

In the missive, obtained by People magazine, De Niro wrote:

“Meryl –

What you said was great. It needed to be said, and you said it beautifully. I have so much respect for you that you did it while the world was celebrating your achievements. I share your sentiments about punks and bullies. Enough is enough. You, with your elegance and intelligence, have a powerful voice – one that inspires others to speak up as they should so their voices will be heard too. It is so important that we ALL speak up.

We love you.

Bob.”

Streep centred on Trump’s mockery of New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, who has during a rally last year.

“It kind of broke my heart, and I saw it, and I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie,” Streep said.

“It was real life. And this instinct to humiliate when it’s modelled 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.”

Despite Trump firing back that Streep was ‘over-rated (sic)’ – though he hailed her as one of his favourite actresses in an interview in 2015 – a wealth of celebrities have come out in support of Streep following the speech.

“Aren’t you supposed to be running the country?” said George Clooney.

“We have to get back to talking and telling the truth, understanding that not everybody is an enemy, and that not all people who voted for Donald Trump are bigots — not even the overwhelming number of people who voted for Donald Trump. They’re disenfranchised, they’re mad, they’re losing their jobs.”

Viola Davis, who introduced Streep to the stage on Sunday night, said: “She told me she was going to p**s off some people of so I was bracing for impact. I love it!

“I feel like anyone who was the mouthpiece of anything progressive, whether it was Martin Luther King or John F. Kennedy, Mahatma Gandhi or whatever, pissed people off.

“She’s earned the right to say that and I think all of us felt a sigh of relief. Sometimes you need the first person to dive in there and have the courage and the bravery to give a mouthpiece to what we were all feeling.”

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