NPR

ESPN Flap Shows People Can't Even Agree On What They're Arguing Over In Trump Era

The ESPN host called the president a "white supremacist" and "bigot." ESPN has not suspended her; conservatives are calling it a double standard, but supporters of Hill are asking what she said wrong?
Jemele Hill, co-host of ESPN's SC6, speaking on a panel last year. Hill has landed in hot water for calling President Trump a "white supremacist." She's got her critics and lots of supporters. / D Dipasupil / Getty Images

Race is again proving to be the sharpest dividing line of the Trump era.

This week, President Trump and conservatives went after ESPN, the cable sports network, for comments made by Jemele Hill, who hosts of one of the flagship SportsCenter shows.

It all started on Monday when Hill, who is black, tweeted in reply to someone else: "Donald Trump is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Hill's comment a "fireable offense."

Then, Trump himself weighed in on Twitter, calling on ESPN to "apologize for untruth" and claiming the network "is paying a really big price for its politics (and bad programming). People are dumping it in RECORD numbers."

There's that ESPN is not losing subscribers because of its politics. And it is very unusual for a White House to use the bully pulpit to call for the firing of someone at a private company because that person said something it didn't like. (An anti-Trump Super PAC has against Sanders, citing executive branch employees cannot act "with the intent to influence, solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation, an employment decision or employment practice of

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