BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — A year ago at the Golden Globes, Meryl Streep gave a lifetime achievement speech and took aim at an incoming U.S. president.

At the 2018 ceremony, Oprah Winfrey gave a lifetime achievement speech and created a buzz that she could land the nation's top job. And Streep was in the audience endorsing the idea.

Winfrey began her address for the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the event's career prize, by noting how her life changed when she saw Sidney Poitier win his landmark Oscar in 1964. Then she wound down her remarks by lauding "hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights."

In the few minutes between, she not only brought the room to a roar but ignited speculation she could challenge the Republican president in 2020.

On social media and at the parties that followed at the Beverly Hilton where the Golden Globes take place — thrown by Netflix, Fox and others celebrating their nominees — the topic hung heavy in the air. Talk that Winfrey could defeat President Trump or another Republican nominee was countered by the argument that such hopes were premature and ignored Winfrey's lack of political experience. For every five people excited about the idea, there was reliably one who dismissed it as Hollywood-liberal fantasy.

One of the evening's most famous guests, however, was on board.

"She launched a rocket tonight. I want her to run for president," Streep told The Post from the ballroom right after the show ended. "I don't think she had any intention [of declaring]. But now she doesn't have a choice."