A day after the Roseanne reboot was canceled over a racist tweet from its creator, President Trump criticized ABC for failing to address the "HORRIBLE statements" said about him.
"Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that 'ABC does not tolerate comments like those' made by Roseanne Barr," Trump tweeted Wednesday. "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's comments were the first time he weighed in on Roseanne Barr's tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett: "Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby."
Iger, the CEO of ABC's parent company Disney, has previously been at odds with the president. He quit Trump's business advisory council when the president pulled out of the Paris climate agreement last year. He also called Trump's decision to end the Obama-era Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program (DACA) "cruel and misguided."
After Trump's tweet, some Democratic lawmakers criticized the president.
For her part, Jarrett, an Iranian-born African-American, discussed the situation during a town hall on MSNBC Wednesday night, during which she said Iger called her to apologize.
"He said that 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.
Jarrett said she wanted this to become a teaching moment — and noted that Trump himself bears some responsibility for Barr's actions.
"The tone does start at the top, and we like to look up to our president and feel as though he reflects the values of our country," she said. "But I also think every individual citizen has a responsibility too, and it's up to all of us to push back. Our government is only going to be as good as we make it be."