White House blasts 'double standard' over Olbermann, Hill, Griffin, Behar anti-Trump comments
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}White House press secretary Sarah Sanders cited ESPN's Jemele Hill and ABC's Joy Behar's anti-Trump comments on Wednesday. (AP/Reuters/Reuters)
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says President Trump wants to know why Disney CEO Bob Iger hasn’t apologized for the “horrible things” said by its anti-Trump personalities like Keith Olbermann, Jemele Hill, Joy Behar and Kathy Griffin.
“Where was Bob Iger's apology to the White House staff for Jemele Hill calling the president and anyone associated with him a white supremacist?” Sanders asked during Wednesday’s press briefing, referencing the ESPN host. “To Christians around the world for Joy Behar calling Christianity a mental illness?” Behar is a frequent Trump detractor.
"And where was the apology from Bob Iger for ESPN hiring Keith Olbermann?” asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders. (Reuters)
Sanders continued: “Where was the apology for Kathy Griffin going on a profane rant against the president on 'The View' after a photo showed her holding President Trump's decapitated head? And where was the apology from Bob Iger for ESPN hiring Keith Olbermann after his numerous expletive-laced tweets attacking the president as a Nazi and even expanding Olbermann’s role after that attack to the president's family.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“This is a double standard that the president is speaking about,” Sanders said.
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Sarah Sanders asked: “Where was Bob Iger's apology to the White House staff for Jemele Hill calling the president and anyone associated with him a white supremacist?”
The Walt Disney Company owns ABC, where Behar and Griffin appear on "The View," as well as ESPN, where Hill and Olbermann appear on television.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sanders made the comments in response to Iger’s apology to Valerie Jarrett, the former adviser to President Barack Obama, after ABC cancelled the “Roseanne” show because of actress Roseanne Barr’s racist comments about Jarrett. In a now-deleted tweet, Barr described Jarrett as like “the muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby.”
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Earlier Wednesday, Trump responded for the first time to the Barr controversy by criticizing Iger.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Where was the apology for Kathy Griffin going on a profane rant against the president on The View after a photo showed her holding President Trump's decapitated head?" Sarah Sanders asked.
“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?’”
Speaking to reporters, Sanders said Trump was “simply pointing out the bias” and “hypocrisy in the media.” She said “the most horrible things” are said about this president and “nobody addresses it.”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders asked why Disney's Iger hasn't apologized “to Christians around the world for Joy Behar calling Christianity a mental illness." (ABC)
“No one is defending her comments,” Sanders said of Barr. “They are inappropriate. But that was the point he was making.”