Travis Tritt Posts Twitter Rant After Meryl Streep Slams Trump at Golden Globes
Travis Tritt is tired of hearing his fellow stars weigh in on politics in public. In a series of tweets early Monday morning (Jan. 9) after Meryl Streep excoriated President-elect Donald Trump during her speech at the Golden Globe Awards, the singer advised celebrities to stick to their crafts and "leave politics to the politicians."
Tritt didn't single out any celebrity in his posts, but his tweets began after Streep's speech, and at least one subsequent reply appeared to reference her speech.
“Advice to all actors, musicians and entertainers: Please stick to your crafts that we all love you for and drop the political rhetoric,” Tritt tweeted around 1AM ET, then immediately added, “Nobody cares or wants to hear what any celebrities have to say about politics. Do your craft and leave politics to the politicians.”
As you can see by clicking through the gallery above, Tritt spent several hours engaging and debating with those who replied to his tweets before sending out a final tweet at 4:45AM ET, saying, “If you have fans who respect your talent enough to spend hard earned money to see your talent, be thankful and gracious and leave it at that.”
Predictably, Twitter's response was mixed; some users agreed with him, while others felt he was being hypocritical.
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“What about your performing and cheerleading Bush 43? Did you forget?” one user wrote, causing Tritt to reply, “That was a long time ago and I’ve learned since that people want to hear my music, not my political views.”
Streep took the podium at the Golden Globes to accept the Cecil B. DeMille Award in recognition of a long career of distinguished work, and she delivered a diatribe against the incoming Republican president, saying, "There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good, there was nothing good about it, but it was effective and it did its job ... It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back."
The iconic actor was apparently referring to Trump's seeming mockery of disabled New York Times reporter Serge Kovaleski at a rally in November of 2015. Trump has often denied he was mocking Kovaleski when he mimicked a twitching motion that resembles Kovaleski's medical condition.
"It kind of broke my heart when I saw it and I still can't get it out of my head because it wasn't in a movie, it was real life," Streep said. "This instinct to humiliate when it's modeled by someone in the public ... by someone powerful, it filters down into everyone's life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same."
Her remarks caused enormous controversy, even eliciting a response from the incoming Republican president, who responded via his preferred method, Twitter, calling Streep "one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood" and a "Hillary flunky who lost big," and once again denying he ever mocked the reporter, calling it another example of the "very dishonest media."
Tritt is a longtime Republican and NRA member who sang the national anthem at the 1996 Republican National Convention. He has previously been very open about his political leanings. He did not publicly endorse any candidate in the bitterly divisive 2016 presidential election, but he did let it slip online who he would not be voting for. In January of 2016 he tweeted, "In the upcoming election, I will be voting for the ABC candidate (Anybody But Clinton)! She is a lying troll who isn't good for America!"
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