The president wants his own apology from ABC honcho Bob Iger.
President Trump has weighed in on ABC's cancellation of “Roseanne” in the wake of a racist tweet posted by Roseanne Barr.
"Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarret 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 Wednesday morning.
Trump is a fan of the show, and Roseanne’s character, like Barr herself, is a supporter of the president.
ABC canceled the hit show after Barr posted a racist tweet about Valerie Jarrett, a former Obama aide, saying she looked like “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.”
Jarrett told MSNBC Tuesday that Disney CEO Bob Iger had called her to apologize.
“He said he had zero tolerance for that sort of racist bigoted comment and he wanted me to know before he made it public that he was canceling the show," she said.
The president's intervention came as Barr blamed her "Roseanne" co-workers for the axing of the sitcom.
She singled out Wanda Sykes, the show's consulting producer, who had announced she would not return for season two.
“Her tweet made ABC very nervous and they canceled the show,” Barr claimed.
She also lashed out at criticism from co-stars Sara Gilbert, and Michael Fishman.
“Wow unreal! You throw me under the bus,” Barr said on Twitter. “I'm tired of being attacked and belittled more than other comedians who have said worse."
Barr also blamed the prescription sedative Ambien, claiming, “It was 2 in the morning and I was Ambien tweeting.
“It can alter your mental state and make you say things that may be abnormal or out of character for you,” Mikhail Varshavski, aka Dr. Mike, told Inside Edition.
Sanofi, the maker of Ambien, issued a tongue-in-cheek response to Barr's accusations, saying, "Racism is not a known side effect of any Sanofi medication.”
Barr’s combative stance seemed at odds with a series of seemingly sincere apologies for what she had done.
“I'm sorry for my tweet,” she wrote in what tweet that was later deleted. “I did something unforgiveable (sic) so do not defend me. It was egregious indefensible. I made a mistake. I wish I hadn’t.”
The show was canceled as the writers and producers were gathering at the studio for the first day of work on next season's 13 new episodes of "Roseanne." One executive producer on the show said they felt 'gut-punched' when they learned the news.
“The entertainment world has never seen anything like this before," Brian Stelter, host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” told Inside Edition. "It is unprecedented."
But he says ABC had no other choice.
“ABC executives decided within a couple of hours that they had to pull the plug on the show," he said. "As one source said to me, this was unsurvivable. There was no way back for Roseanne Barr. There was no apology or sanction that was going to be sufficient."
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