Donald Trump and Bette Midler are feuding. Yes, again

Bette Midler emerged grateful on Wednesday from what she dubbed “the Battle of the Bulge” with President Donald Trump.

The acclaimed entertainer, who is a fierce Trump critic, is the celebrity du jour to provoke the feud-inclined leader. And it turns out Midler has been poking at the president online since at least 2012.

The latest in their history of vicious exchanges happened after Midler tweeted a fake quote about Trump this week, which resulted in him calling her a “washed up psycho.” And now the Oscar-nominated actress is embracing that insult.

“I want to thank everyone who came to my defense last night during my personal Battle of the Bulge with he who must not be named,” Midler tweeted Wednesday morning. “Your wit and good nature really lifted my spirits; as a newly washed up psycho, I am very grateful for your thoughts and prayers.”

Midler, who has won Emmy, Grammy and Tony awards, was in the throes of her latest Trump tirade on Monday when she erroneously tweeted a fabricated quote attributed to the billionaire.

You know, the line in which he allegedly claimed that if he were to ever run for president, he would do so as a Republican because “they’re the dumbest group of voters in the country.” (Her original tweet has since been removed.)

She also sardonically added that quotes should always be checked, but it’s an unwieldy exercise because “the task of separating the truth from the lies is impossible.”

That quip about Republican voters has been debunked repeatedly, and the president on Tuesday reminded Midler of that fact. Midler apologized for sharing it but added that “it sounds SO much like him” that she believed it to be true.

“Washed up psycho @BetteMidler was forced to apologize for a statement she attributed to me that turned out to be totally fabricated by her in order to make ‘your great president’ look really bad,” Trump tweeted on Tuesday. “She got caught, just like the Fake News Media gets caught. A sick scammer!”

For context, Trump’s response came amid tweets also belittling Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and former Vice President Joe Biden and a dismissal of the “massive rallies” against him during his U.K. visit. He also attempted on Wednesday to explain his comments about Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, after he called the American actress “nasty.”

And this is not the first time the Divine Miss M and the Donald have been in each other’s cross-hairs, either.

Back in 2012, before Trump formally entered the political arena, Midler dubbed the New York real estate developer the “architect of the ruination of the West Side” on Twitter and said he “deserves to be held down and his hair cut off, or strapped to the roof of the car!”

That criticism didn’t go unnoticed and Trump hit back, tweeting barbs about Midler’s looks (“an extremely unattractive woman”), his own political correctness and double standards.

Then in 2014, after the “Beaches” star performed “Wind Beneath My Wings” during the “In Memoriam” tribute of the 86th Academy Awards, Trump proclaimed that she “sucked” and also trashed the producers of the Ellen DeGeneres-hosted telecast.

The singer regularly derides Trump and his policies, but he doesn’t always respond to her criticisms.

As of Wednesday morning, Trump hadn’t weighed in on Midler’s latest missive. And Midler’s rep didn’t immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

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