Donald Trump Silent On ‘Roseanne’ Cancellation, Is Instead ‘Focused On The Economy,’ Says Sarah Sanders
Speaking on Tuesday night at a rally in Nashville, President Donald Trump covered a number of topics, but conspicuously absent among those topics was the ABC sitcom Roseanne’s cancellation. The show was canceled earlier on Tuesday, shortly after the show’s star, Roseanne Barr, took to Twitter and referred to an African-American adviser to Barack Obama as an “ape.”
According to Deadline, Trump’s silence on Roseanne’s cancellation was a notable contrast to how he had trumpeted the show’s excellent ratings following its recent reboot. Keeping things in line with her political beliefs in real life, Barr’s character, Roseanne Conner, was written in the reboot as a staunch Trump supporter. This is similar to how real-life Republican actor Tim Allen espouses right-wing views in character on Last Man Standing, a show that was canceled by ABC in 2017, then picked up earlier this month by Fox for a seventh season, per a report from TV Line.
“Look at her ratings! Look at her ratings!” Trump said at a March 29 rally in Richfield, Ohio, as quoted by Deadline.
“They were unbelievable! Over 18 million people! And it was about us!”
Prior to Trump’s Nashville rally, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was cagey when asked by reporters about the president’s reaction to Roseanne’s cancellation. According to Deadline, Sanders “brushed away questions” on the topic, and stressed that Trump’s is focusing on other things beyond the cancellation of a series starring one of his most vocal supporters.
“The president’s focused on North Korea and he’s focused on trade deals and he’s focused on the economy,” said Sanders.
TV networks cancel "Roseanne" reruns https://t.co/Am7TpWZBxi pic.twitter.com/grJ9ISGoax
— The Hill (@thehill) May 30, 2018
Commenting on whether Trump believes ABC made the right decision by axing Roseanne over Barr’s tweet from earlier on Tuesday, Sanders reiterated that there are more pressing matters to attend to at the present, rather than that of Roseanne getting canceled.
“That’s not what the president is looking at. That’s not what’s he’s spending his time on. I think we have a lot bigger things going on in the country right now, certainly, that the president is spending his time on.”
As of this writing, Donald Trump’s official Twitter account does not include any new posts in the last 14 hours, so he has yet to issue a comment on Roseanne getting canceled by ABC. Meanwhile, Barr’s Twitter has apparently been reactivated, despite how she said earlier today that she will be shutting her account down amid the recent controversy. She has, however, deleted all references to her previous comments, where she jokingly suggested that former Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, a black woman, is the child of the “Muslim Brotherhood and the Planet of the Apes,” according to Time.
