Politics
ABC
- President Trump made a personal phone call to Roseanne Barr to congratulate her on the high ratings for the "Roseanne" revival.
- The revival premiered two episodes back to back on ABC Tuesday night.
- In the revival, Roseanne is a Trump supporter, like in real life.
President Trump made a phone call Wednesday to "Roseanne" star Roseanne Barr to congratulate her on the high ratings for the return sitcom's reboot on ABC, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed to The New York Times.
On Tuesday night, ABC aired two back-to-back episodes of "Roseanne." It generated impressive ratings, with a 5.1 rating in adults 18-49 and 18.2 million viewers for the entire hour, according to Variety. For reference, NBC's reboot of "Will & Grace" had 10.2 million viewers for its premiere in fall 2017. The ratings for the "Roseanne" reboot were also higher than they were for the series finale in 1997, which is staggering in a time of cord cutters and streaming.
Trump was reportedly "enthralled" with "Roseanne's" TV ratings and was likely also impressed with the content. "Roseanne" depicts a working class family in the Midwest, and speaks to the kind of people who support Trump.
Fox News was also impressed. Sean Hannity tweeted "the 'Proud Deplorable' smashes expectations" Wednesday.
In the first episode that aired, Roseanne is a Trump supporter and hasn't been on speaking terms with her Hillary-supporting sister Jackie (Oscar nominee Laurie Metcalf of "Lady bird") since the election. Things have gotten so bad that Roseanne pretends Jackie has died.
Barr has publicly defended Trump in real life, just as she has on screen. In an interview with the Times on Tuesday, Barr said she decided to make her character on "Roseanne" a Trump supporter because she thought it would be an "accurate portrayal" of working-class Americans.
On "Good Morning America" Thursday morning, Barr referenced her conversations with Trump: "We just kind of had a private conversation but we talked about a lot of things and he's just happy for me."
Barr also acknowledged their mutual interest in ratings. "He really understands ratings and how they measure things, and that's kind of been an interest of mine too," she said.