White House: Hill Tweet Is Firing Offense

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said ESPN anchor Jemele Hill's tweet that the President is a white supremacist unfit for office is a firing offense. At the daily briefing Wednesday, Sept. 13, Sanders was asked about the Tweet and said the statement was "one of the most outrageous comments anyone could make."

Hill, who is African American, is the 6 p.m. co-host of SportsCenter.

ESPN released a statement saying: "The comments on Twitter from Jemele Hill regarding the President do not represent the position of ESPN. We have addressed this with Jemele and she recognizes her actions were inappropriate."

Hill apologized in a tweet Wednesday night for putting ESPN in the middle of what she said were her personal beliefs, for which she was unapologetic.


So, to address the elephant in the room ... #Factspic.twitter.com/RTrIDD87ut

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) September 14, 2017



Hill told Sports Illustrated Wednesday: “I have to talk myself out of sending certain tweets several times a day. When you're under the leadership of a President that refuses to condemn Nazis and racism, how am I supposed to function the rest of the day and pretend as if I give a s--- about Blake Bortles losing his job?"

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.