Despite Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ declaration that the president was too busy with other topics to focus on ABC’s canceling of “Roseanne,” President Donald Trump tweeted about ABC’s statement on the situation. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo How Trump turned a racist tweet into a media attack Rather than criticize Roseanne, the White House unveiled its own list of offenses against Trump by Walt Disney Company personnel.

The White House rarely misses an opportunity to attack the media, but efforts by President Donald Trump and his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to turn racist comments by Roseanne Barr into a battering ram against the press left even some journalists taken aback.

Despite Sanders’ declaration on Tuesday that the president was too busy with other topics to focus on ABC’s canceling of “Roseanne,” Trump tweeted on Wednesday morning, “Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that ‘ABC does not tolerate comments like those’ made by Roseanne Barr. 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?”


In the White House press briefing Wednesday afternoon, Sanders picked up on that theme. When asked why Trump addressed Iger’s apology but not the content of Barr’s tweets, she said “Nobody is defending what she said” and the president was “simply calling out the media bias” and “the hypocrisy in the media.”

Sanders then read what appeared to be a prepared list of grievances against employees of The Disney Company, which owns both ABC and ESPN, a favorite Trump target.

She said, “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, to Christians around the world for Joy Behar calling Christianity a mental illness? Where was the apology for Kathy Griffin going on a profane rant against the president on ‘The View’ after a photo showed her holding the 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 against the president’s family? This is a double standard that the president is speaking out. Nobody is defending her comments, they are inappropriate, but that’s the point the president was making.”

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Struck by the White House’s bank-shot, Boston Globe reporter Matt Viser tweeted, “Somehow the Trump White House is turning a racist comment from Roseanne into a call for ABC to apologize to Trump for a long list of grievances, including Keith Olbermann and Joy Behar.”

“Sarah Sanders did not walk into the briefing today with a prepared statement condemning Roseanne's racist comments. Instead, she brought a list of anti-Trump insults and slights from ABC/ESPN personalities,” tweeted CNN reporter Marshall Cohen.

On CNN after the briefing, frequent Sanders sparring partner Jim Acosta said, “It’s a bit much, I think, for the White House press secretary from the podium to come out here and try to shame the media and say it’s somehow our fault that Roseanne Barr put out this tweet.”

The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake noted the effect of equating the comments by those listed with Sanders with Barr’s racism: “@PressSec says ‘nobody is defending’ Roseanne. But you can't make the BIAS argument unless you're suggesting these other, non-racist things were as bad as Roseanne's racist thing. That's implicitly downplaying her racist thing.”

The Disney Company did not reply immediately to request for comment.

Sanders’ comments were also somewhat misleading. After Hill, an ESPN personality, tweeted her belief that Trump is a white supremacist, ESPN issued a statement disavowing her position and saying “her actions were inappropriate.”

And Behar publicly apologized for her comments mocking Christianity and Vice President Mike Pence’s faith. “I think Vice President Pence is right; I was raised to respect everyone’s religious faith, and I fell short of that,” Behar said on “The View” in March. “I sincerely apologize for what I said.”

For her part, Kathie Griffin lost her job at CNN over the image of the decapitated Trump head and has spoken about how the incident hurt her career.

Earlier in the day, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman called Trump’s tweet, “another example of Trump treating everything as if it’s the same. The presidency = the media. Racism = negative feelings.” She added, “Everything is up/down, good/bad, with him as the constant.”

At the end of his CNN hit, Acosta noted the irony of a White House whose trademark is never apologizing complaining that Trump has not received any from Iger.

“They themselves owe the American people plenty of apologies for the things the president has said over the years,” Acosta said, “and of course we know past being prologue with this president, those apologies will likely not be forthcoming.”