Former ESPN host and current writer for the Atlantic, Jemele Hill, says she thought she was merely stating the obvious when she called President Trump a “white supremacist” on Twitter last year.
On the first episode of current ESPN host Dan Le Batard’s South Beach Sessions podcast, Hill was asked about her famous tweet where she called the president a racist.
“I thought I was saying water is wet,” Hill explained. “I didn’t even think it was controversial.
Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 11, 2017
“I was in the middle of a Twitter conversation, I was replying to somebody. If I was really trying to make a bold statement, I would have added the damn president. I didn’t, I was just talking casually with somebody,” she continued. “It wasn’t even original. That’s what is so crazy. I got famous for saying something that wasn’t original. It wasn’t new. It was not breaking news. I thought we all decided this after Charlottesville.”
Hill added that she had no remorse over calling Trump a racist, because she felt the comment was accurate.
“I would have felt worse if I felt I took a shot at somebody who didn’t deserve it,” she said. “If I felt it was a mistake… I probably would have felt bad about it, but I never did.”
Hill did not face discipline for the tweet about Trump in September of 2017. However, she did get suspended the following month after she began advising Cowboys fans how to boycott the team. In September of 2018, Hill and ESPN agreed to mutually part ways as new ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro worked to re-brand the network as a sports network only, and not a divisive political network.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
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