Actress Bette Midler launched another inflammatory attack on President Donald Trump this week, accusing him of everything from mental instability to authoritarianism in a tirade posted to social media. The Hocus Pocus star’s claims were quickly met with scrutiny and backlash, particularly given their disconnect from documented facts.
In her Monday Instagram post, Midler ridiculed the president for investigating whether former President Joe Biden was mentally fit when he signed a flurry of controversial clemency orders using an auto pen in his final days in office. Without offering evidence, Midler turned the accusation around, claiming Trump himself is “mentally unfit to serve.”
She went further, asserting that Trump “sent troops in to gas their own citizens and drag them to gulags,” a claim ICE officials flatly deny. The suggestion that lawful federal agents are operating domestic "gulags" is not only false, but also a dangerous escalation in rhetoric.
Midler also made the unfounded claim that Trump threatened to strip a critic of their citizenship, and accused the president of selling foreign-made merchandise. In reality, Trump’s official “Make America Great Again” hats are manufactured in the United States—a fact publicly confirmed by the campaign and federal trademark records.
The actress also appeared to take issue with Trump’s prior interactions with business leaders, claiming he “shilled for carmakers on the grounds of the White House.” Though unclear, this could be a reference to past events involving Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose policy disagreements with Trump have been widely publicized. Still, no evidence supports Midler’s implication of impropriety.
She ended her post by declaring Trump had “soiled and stained” the presidency—directly attacking the legitimacy of a president elected by a historic margin. Trump’s 2024 win, by all major accounts, was decisive.
He not only carried the Electoral College, but also won the popular vote and every contested swing state, making him the first Republican in decades to do so. That outcome gave his administration a firm mandate to advance its legislative priorities, including the One Big Beautiful Bill.
This latest rant is part of a long pattern of inflammatory remarks from Midler, who has previously encouraged dangerous actions such as ingesting toxic chemicals if Trump were to win re-election—a statement widely condemned at the time.
In 2021, she also bizarrely accused Trump of attempted murder, alleging he tried to infect Joe Biden with COVID-19 during a televised debate—another baseless claim unsupported by any credible investigation or evidence.