NEW YORK (AP) - The Latest on Roseanne Barr (all times local):
3:20 p.m.
The White House says President Donald Trump isn’t defending Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about a former Obama adviser.
Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump’s tweet Wednesday was intended to point out media bias against him.
Trump tweeted that the CEO of ABC’s parent company called Valerie Jarrett to say the network wouldn’t tolerate Barr’s tweet about her. Trump wrote that CEO Bob Iger never call him to apologize for “’’the HORRIBLE statements” that have been said about him on ABC. Trump tweeted that maybe he “just didn’t get the call.”
Sanders faulted some networks for not covering Trump’s signing Wednesday of legislation giving terminally ill patients the right to try unapproved drugs.
She also faulted Iger for not apologizing to Trump after ESPN personality Jemele Hill called Trump a “white supremacist.”
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11:50 a.m.
President Donald Trump has broken his silence on the cancellation of “Roseanne.”
In a tweet, Trump noted that Robert Iger, who is chief executive of ABC’s parent Walt Disney Co., called Valerie Jarrett to say the network wouldn’t tolerate Roseanne Barr’s racist tweet about the former Obama adviser.
Trump wrote that Iger never called him to apologize for “the HORRIBLE statements” that have been said about him on ABC. Tweeted Trump: “Maybe I just didn’t get the call.”
The president reveled in the show’s success this spring, especially after Barr’s character came out as a supporter of his policies.
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7:35 a.m.
Roseanne Barr is partly blaming Ambien for the tweet that led to her show’s cancellation, but the maker of the insomnia drug quickly retorted that “racism is not a known side effect.”
Hours after ABC axed her show for her offensive tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett - and quickly breaking a promise to stay off Twitter - the comedian was back on the social media platform.
She urged people not to defend her and said of her Jarrett tweet that she was “ambien tweeting” at 2 a.m.
That led to the response on Twitter by the drug maker Sanofi.
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2 a.m.
Roseanne Barr shows no signs she will remain quiet about her firing from her popular ABC series and has highlighted supporters’ tweets criticizing the network.
Barr engaged in a series of tweets Tuesday night, hours after ABC announced it was canceling the rebooted “Roseanne” over a racist tweet by the comedian attacking Valerie Jarrett, an adviser to former President Barack Obama.
Barr’s post-firing tweets included an apology to those who lost their jobs because of her words, but her choice of retweets struck a defiant tone. They included one post that juxtaposed an image of Jarrett with an image of a “Planet of the Apes” actor - a comparison that led to her firing.
She later tweeted that people should not defend her.
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