Sports journalist Jemele Hill did not realize that her 2017 remarks calling President Donald Trump a white supremacist would spur such a contentious debate.
“I thought I was saying water is wet. I didn’t even think it was controversial,” Hill told Dan Le Batard on his “South Beach Sessions” podcast on Wednesday.
“I was in the middle of a Twitter conversation. I was replying to somebody,” she continued. “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.”
During that fall 2017 conversation on Twitter, Hill wrote that Trump was a “white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” The “Atlantic” writer and former co-host of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” later added that Trump was the “most ignorant, offensive president of my lifetime” and his rise was a “direct result of white supremacy.”
Hill’s comments quickly went viral and prompted responses from Trump and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Sanders called the journalist’s remarks a “fireable offense,” while Trump claimed that comments like Hill’s were hurting ESPN’S ratings. Although ESPN did not publicly punish Hill at the time, the company made it clear that her point of view did not represent that of the network.
