- President Donald Trump on Wednesday weighed in on the controversy surrounding a racist tweet by Roseanne Barr.
- Barr’s tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama, led ABC to cancel her show on Tuesday.
- Trump did not directly comment on the controversy, instead calling on ABC to apologize to him for what he said were “HORRIBLE” things that had been said about him on the network.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday weighed in on the controversy surrounding a racist tweet by Roseanne Barr about Valerie Jarrett, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama, that led ABC to cancel Barr’s show on Tuesday.
Trump did not directly comment on the controversy or on ABC’s decision, instead saying ABC and Bob Iger, the CEO of its parent company, Disney, have never apologized for what the president said were “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. 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?” Trump tweeted.
In her tweet on Tuesday, Barr described Jarrett, an African-American woman born in Iran, as a child of “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes.” Barr promptly faced widespread backlash, and within hours ABC canceled the revival of her show, “Roseanne.”
Barr has apologized for the tweet and blamed it on her use of the sleep medication Ambien. Sanofi, the manufacturer of Ambien, on Wednesday took issue with the actress' claims about the drug's effects.
"People of all races, religions and nationalities work at Sanofi every day to improve the lives of people around the world," Sanofi said in a statement on Twitter. "While all pharmaceutical treatments have side effects, racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication."