Why Meryl Streep Says We’ll All Thank Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump One Day

Meryl Streep says that one day we will thank President Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein for their roles in the #MeToo movement.

“It’s sort of like, something that felt like its time had come,” Streep told The Telegraph. “And in a way we’re all going to have to thank Donald Trump for securing the executive branch of our government. We’re going to find where all the weaknesses are in our government. And we’re going to have to thank Harvey Weinstein for a moment in time where the door just got blown open. And it’s kind of great.”

The Post actress added, “It’s kind of great that it’s happened. It’s horrible for the people that were sacrificed along the way. But it’s almost like they went to war, these girls who stood up. And they took the bullets.”

In the past, Streep has said she was not aware of the sexual abuse allegations against Weinstein before they broke in the press. Last month, she was criticized by Rose McGowan, after it was reported that Streep and other actresses plan to wear black to this weekend’s Golden Globes to protest sexual harassment.

“It hurt to be attacked by Rose McGowan in banner headlines this weekend, but I want to let her know I did not know about Weinstein’s crimes, not in the ’90s when he attacked her, or through subsequent decades when he proceeded to attack others,” Streep said on Dec. 18. “I wasn’t deliberately silent. I didn’t know. I don’t tacitly approve of rape. I didn’t know. I don’t like young women being assaulted. I didn’t know this was happening.”

McGowan also called out Streep for comments the Oscar-winner made on Dec. 7.

“The thing abound Harvey Weinstein is that he is sort of the most gargantuan example of a kind of disrespect that permeates every industry, every enterprise,” Streep said during a talk with Gloria Steinam in Boston. “I’m not sure why. I have a lot of theories — maybe its in response to the women’s movement. Maybe its in fear of the women movement. But these abuses are about dominance.”

Streep stars in Steven Spielberg’s The Post, playing the Washington Post‘s Katharine Graham. The film centers on the Washington Post‘s fight to publish the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War.

“What drew me to the original script was a story that hasn’t been told. The story of this uneasy emergence of women that happened in the middle of the 20th century and has brought us to the moment where we are now,” Streep told The Telegraph. “Embedded in the story is what women have been able to become. In newsrooms. In courts. In the places where, in our movie, they don’t exist.”

The Post is now in playing in select cities and earned six Golden Globe awards. It opens wide on Jan. 12.

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox