Former presidential candidate Herman Cain addressed ABC’s cancellation of Roseanne Tuesday following lead actress Roseanne Barr’s tasteless tweet about Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett.
While the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO took issue with Barr’s “despicable” and “racist” tweet, he also questioned the assertion that Barr was a racist herself and ABC’s motives for cancelling the show. (RELATED: ABC Cancels ‘Roseanne’)
“Well, first of all, it was despicable and it did have a racist implication,” Cain told Fox News host Neil Cavuto. “She overstepped her bounds and she didn’t think about what the backlash would be. However, I don’t disagree with all of the criticism that she has gotten. I question whether or not that was the only motivation for cancelling the show.”
Cain admitted that “we will never know” the network’s true motivations, but the fact that ABC “provided 91 percent negative coverage” of President Trump and Barr was a high profile defender could be a factor.
Barr provided the “ammunition” the network needed, Cain stated, “and that’s too bad for her as well as all the people that had jobs” on the show. (RELATED: Multiple Networks Pulling ‘Roseanne’ Reruns From Programming)
But, “ABC took the actions that it thought were necessary in order to say we do not condone this sort of language, even if you thought you were trying to be funny.”
Still, according to Cain, many companies these days are quick to put their hatred of conservatism over their desire for profit.
“I believe that some companies are so obsessed with trump derangement syndrome, conservative principles, that even if it sacrifices making money, they would not like to have that kind of defense of conservatism and Donald Trump in a popular show,” said Cain. “We don’t know that, but I’m saying sometimes some of these organizations will forego making more money with successful ratings just to basically try to stand by their political point of view.”
“Do you think Roseanne is a racist?” asked Cavuto.
“No,” responded Cain. “I’ve seen her show many times. I don’t think she’s a racist. I think she made some comments that she didn’t think about that would come across as sounding racist and indeed they were racist comments.”
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