President Donald Trump demanded an apology this morning from ESPN for broadcaster Jemele Hill’s claim that he’s a white supremacist.
‘ESPN is paying a really big price for its politics (and bad programming). People are dumping it in RECORD numbers. Apologize for untruth!’ he said.
The sports network has already said Hill’s ‘actions were inappropriate’ and they ‘do not represent the position of ESPN.’ The network did not take the additional steps of suspending her from Sports Center or apologizing to the president.
President Donald Trump demanded an apology this morning from ESPN for broadcaster Jemele Hill’s claim that he’s a white supremacist
President Trump did not suggest that Hill should be fired this morning, although he said he would like an apology
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday that Hill’s comments were a ‘fireable offense’ – remarks that were interpreted as a public call for Hill’s dismissal.
President Trump did not suggest that Hill should be fired this morning, although he said he would like an apology.
Hill apologized to the network this week in a tweet but not the president.
Trump’s Friday morning tweet was his first set of comments on the matter and follow his claim yesterday that there were some ‘very bad’ counterprotesters at a white nationalist rally last month in Charlottesville.
Hill tweeted Monday that Trump is a ‘bigot’ and a ‘white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/other white supremacists.’
She also called him ‘unqualified and unfit to be president’ and said that ‘if he were not white, he would never have been elected’.
On Wednesday, during the White House press briefing, Sanders said the remarks were ‘outrageous’ and called them a ‘fireable offense.’
Hill called President Trump ‘a white supremacist’ in a social media rant on Monday, something that Sanders called ‘outrageous’ and a fireable offense
A reporter had asked if the president was familiar with Hill’s remarks and whether the White House had a response to them.
‘I’m not sure if he’s aware but I think that’s one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make,’ the Trump spokeswoman replied. ‘And certainly is something that I think is a fireable offense by ESPN.’
The channel distanced itself from the host’s remarks on Tuesday, tweeting from it’s PR account: ‘The comments on Twitter Jemele Hill regarding the president do not represent the position of ESPN.
‘We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate,’ the network said.
Hill apologized to her employer on Twitter on Wednesday evening after appearing in her regular role on SportsCenter.
‘My comments on Twitter expressed my personal beliefs,’ she said. ‘My regret is that my comments and the public way I made them painted ESPN in an unfair light. My respect for the company and my colleagues remains unconditional.’
Disney-owned ESPN reportedly wanted to keep Jemele Hill (left), 41, from co-hosting the nightly SportsCenter at 6pm on Wednesday as she does every night alongside Michael Smith (right), 38. The two are seen above in Houston, Texas on February 3, 2017
ESPN said in a statement shortly after that her apology had been accepted.
‘Jemele has a right to her personal opinions, but not to publicly share them on a platform that implies that she was in any way speaking on behalf of ESPN. She has acknowledged that her tweets crossed that line and has apologized for doing so. We accept her apology,’ the network said, according to CNN.
Amid rampant subscriber losses, ESPN has been accused of pushing a left-wing political agenda, accusations Hill has often been at the center of.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson, for instance, dubbed ESPN the ‘Endless Stupid Political Nagging’ network.
The network has shed more than 12 million subscribers since 2011, Fortune reported.
At a June conference in Manhattan, Hill said, ‘Sports have always been political.
In remarks reported by Yahoo Finance, Hill said that athletes often push political agendas, ‘dragging’ sports journalists who cover them into the issue.
She implied that complaints about ESPN’s alleged liberal bias were dog whistles for racism.
‘As you see more ethnic diversity, then all of a sudden ESPN is too liberal,’ she said. ‘So I wonder, when people say that, what they’re really saying.’
The channel itself distanced itself from the host’s remarks on Tuesday when its ESPN PR Twitter account tweeted: ‘The comments on Twitter Jemele Hill regarding the president do not represent the position of ESPN’
Weeks ago, Hill was at the epicenter of another race-based controversy when she was slammed for comparing police officers to the ‘slave patrols’ that took place on pre-Civil War plantations.
Hill was lamenting former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s inability to get a new contract. She was reminded that he had a month before compared cops to ‘slave patrols.’
‘Inflammatory, but historically accurate,’ she said in one of her tweets defending Kaepernick.
She went on to tweet, ‘There’s historically truth there, yes … but is it fair to say now to all the cops, esp when many minorities serve?’
‘I wouldn’t say all, but it’s been clear for a long time the policing & judicial system are institutionally racist,’ she wrote.