President Donald Trump has weighed in on the Twitter misfire that got Roseanne Barr’s hit sitcom canceled.
In a Twitter post on Wednesday, the commander-in-chief publicly mocked Disney CEO Bob Iger for calling Valerie Jarrett to apologize for Roseanne’s offensive tweet and asked why the man who oversees ABC had never called him to apologize for “the HORRIBLE statements” made about him on the network.
“Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ‘ABC does not tolerate comments like those’ made by Roseanne Barr,” said Trump. “Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1001848460881035265
It’s the first time Trump has addressed Roseanne’s tweet and the subsequent cancellation of her program — which he had previously praised for its star’s outspoken support of his presidency.
POTUS was silent on the matter all day Tuesday and declined to raise the issue at a rally in Tennessee that night. In the past Trump has praised Roseanne and her show’s impressive ratings. He even went so far as to place a personal call to congratulate the network star during the height of last season’s run.
ABC pulled the plug on their most most successful show on Tuesday after Barr joked that former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett was a child of apes and the Muslim Brotherhood. Though Barr later deleted the tweet and apologized, saying she was on Ambien at the time, it was not enough to save her show or stem the mounting social media backlash against her.
“Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show,” said ABC Entertainment chief Channing Dungey in a terse statement to reporters Tuesday announcing the news.