Just as ESPN was hoping the Jemele Hill controversy was subsiding, the president weighed in on it this morning.
“ESPN is paying a really big price for its politics (and bad programming),” he wrote on Twitter. “People are dumping it in RECORD numbers. Apologize for untruth!”
On Monday night, Hill, who anchors the 6 p.m. edition of ESPN’s SportsCenter unleashed a barrage of tweets calling Trump “a white supremicist,” “ignorant,” “unqualified,” and “a bigot.”
“He is not a leader. And if he were not white, he never would have been elected,” she concluded.
ESPN responded Tuesday afternoon saying Hill’s comments “do not represent the position of ESPN.”
Then on Wednesday, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked about the comments, calling them “a fireable offense by ESPN.”
Later Wednesday, Hill tweeted a response:
So, to address the elephant in the room … #Facts pic.twitter.com/RTrIDD87ut
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 14, 2017
The president’s comment this morning hits at ESPN’s bottom line. In the last two years, ESPN has lost more than 7 percent of subscribers, now around 88 million. ESPN has also seen ratings losses and staffing cuts of late.