After trading barbs over social media, actress Bette Midler escalated her feud with President Donald Trump by tweeting a comment that implied he should be stabbed.
In a since-deleted post, Midler, 73, wrote on Tuesday in reply to filmmaker Michael Moore criticizing Trump's wardrobe, 'He actually looks better here! Maybe someone in his camp can gently give him a shiv. I mean, shove.'
Trump, who hasn't posted about this latest tweet, previously called Midler a 'washed up psycho' and 'sick scammer' after the actress apologized for unwittingly sharing a fake quote attributed to the president.
After trading barbs over social media, Bette (left) Midler escalated a feud with President Donald Trump (right) by tweeting a comment that implied he should be stabbed by joking, 'Maybe someone in his camp can gently give him a shiv,' which she deleted
In a since-deleted tweet, Midler, 73, wrote on Tuesday, 'He actually looks better here! Maybe someone in his camp can gently give him a shiv. I mean, shove'
The post was in reply to a post by Michael Moore criticizing Trump's wardrobe (tweet shown)
After Midler tweeted the comment, some took it quite literally and called for the Secret Service to get involved.
User @SophiaYates tweeted, 'Bette Midler said on a Tuesday night tweet “He actually looks better here! Maybe someone in his camp can gently give him a shiv. I mean, shove,” It means stab w a knife really! She threatened the President publicly. Secret Service please do something about her!!'
Others, however, pointed out that based on the language she used, it was not grammatically correct to be seen as a threat.
One user pointed out that to give Trump a shiv would be to give him a sharp object, and that the way Midler wrote it, it was using the word like the noun, and not the verb.
'@BetteMidler Suggested that someone from the Trump camp give our @POTUS a Shiv,' the person wrote, noting a shiv is defined as 'a homemade knife-like weapon, especially one fashioned in prison.'
The person added, 'The related verb shiv means "to stab someone" @SecretService @FBI.'
Another person wrote, 'A threat is not "maybe someone should shiv him". A threat is “I’m going to shiv him”. A CREDIBLE threat is “I’m seeing him tonight and I’m going to shiv him”.
After Midler tweeted the comment, some took it quite literally and called for the Secret Service to get involved
Others, however, pointed out that based on the language she used, it was not grammatically correct to be seen as a threat
Another person wrote, 'A threat is not "maybe someone should shiv him". A threat is "I’m going to shiv him”. A CREDIBLE threat is “I’m seeing him tonight and I’m going to shiv him"
Midler arguably kicked off the war of words by tweeting a debunked meme that featured a quote from a 1990's People Magazine interview in which Trump purportedly said: 'If I were to run, I'd run as a Republican. They're the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could lie and they'd still eat it up. I bet my numbers would be terrific.'
The meme first surfaced during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, at which point Politifact determined that there is no record of the then-Democrat making such a comment.
Twitter users quickly informed Midler of her mistake, and she responded in a tweet dripping with sarcasm.
'I apologize; this quote turns out to be a fake from way back in '15-16,' she wrote.
'Don't know how I missed it, but it sounds SO much like him that I believed it was true!'
Midler arguably kicked off the war of words by tweeting a debunked meme which featured a quote from a 1990s People Magazine interview in which Trump purportedly said: 'If I were to run, I'd run as a Republican. They're the dumbest group of voters in the country. They believe anything on Fox News. I could
