have you looked at the news because now things are worse. not on the real news. please. after that, roseanne revival debuteded in march and those ratings have declined since then, the president celebrated roseanne barr has a kindred spirit. look the an roseanne. i called her yesterday. look at her ratings. look at her ratings. they were unbelievable. over 18 million people. and it was about us. with me now to discuss all this my colleague and co-host for to know s town hall had, joy reid, the chair of the congressional black caucus, cedric richmond, democrat of louisiana. congressman, let me start with you. what is your reaction to abc s actions today? well, i think it was appropriate. i think it was swift. and i think it was warranted. so they made a quick decision, the right decision and applaud them for it.
thought she was bullet proof because she was so successful particularly with this new program. boom, she says the wrong thing. and you know, awful things and there s a quick and important consequence to pay for that. that is a very important teaching moment. final question here, immediate thoughts what the president would say anything about this. he talked about calling her up. she kind of had a little bit of the record that she has about her public statements even back then. but there s a real question in my mind whether you expect to see the president wega in on this. what do you think? i think given his record and let s remember, he praised roseanne barr to high heaven you ran some clips as you opened the program when she was seemingly on top having great ratings success.
should attempt to reconcile and bring everyone in. but she has very defiantly been on the outs in terms of what i think most people consider acceptable racial dialogue. she says racist stuff all the time. i agree. again, this is a moment for accountability. yeah. and this is the accountability. and i think that was absolutely the right thing. i guess what i m saying is i think the country has become so tribal that unfortunately and i m not quite sure how you deal with this, but there are those in mr. trump s base who feel that any attack on mr. trump is an attack on them personally. yeah. so i just think there s a way to hold folks accountable without vilifying them. and, you know, just moving beyond roseanne barr for a moment and taking this conversation into, well, what do you do with the rest of the president s base that s shouting lock her up at a rally? i mean, you know, so
monetary interests of the network. there was a market for this. i wonder what you think about the fact that look, there was all this talk about roseanne representing authentic willy a group of americans that feel unrepresented in pop culture. it seems this is the other side of that in that she is really is one of the people she claims she is on the show. exactly. i think that many people thought, she s just an actress and acting the part on the show. that s not who she really is. i don t know roseanne barr, what her personality is in person. however it turns out, just as you say, that the things she was saying on the program what she reflected on the program where she is in terms of politics, ideology and particularly in race reeses is pretty much who she turned out to be. one important thing about this day and we have to point out that this was a teaching moment as valerie jarrett said and says on the recorded program that follows this one. this is a teaching moment.
in his critics as a political win. and that it strikes me that that is one prism to understand sort of everything in the kind of news arc today, right? from the stories we re writing about what s happening on the border to what happened with roseanne barr that the idea that if you just sort of think about what your enemies will hate like they ll hate the fact you separate children that you could end up in some morally dark places. well, you know, so much of the trump administration is performance theater and i think stephen miller and donald trump have this thing in common where this is the sense of how can i disturb and offend and hurt and atck as many people as possle with either a policy pronouncement or rhetoric at a rally. but what we forget in the midst of these kind of conversations is that there are real people who are hurt, whether we re talking about the thousands of