Trump's campaign manager reportedly wanted to invite Roseanne Barr to a rally the day she was fired

Roseanne Barr
(Image credit: Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images)

Even after her firing, could Roseanne Barr ever appear alongside Donald Trump at a rally? Had Trump's own campaign manager had his way, it would have already happened.

A recent profile in The New York Times delved into Brad Parscale, campaign manager for the president's 2020 re-election, and his numerous unconventional ideas. One of his less popular ideas was to invite Roseanne Barr to a campaign rally the very same day she was fired by ABC for posting a racist tweet comparing a black woman to an ape. Within hours of that May tweet, Roseanne, the revived sitcom that featured Barr as a character who was as vocal a Trump supporter as the comedian is in real life, had been canceled. Trump held a rally in Nashville, Tennessee, that night.

This suggestion, the Times notes, was quickly shot down by others who work for the president, which is why it never ended up happening. Still, Trump would later somewhat come to Barr's defense, suggesting that there was a double standard in that she was fired from ABC but Full Frontal host Samantha Bee was not fired from TBS after calling Ivanka Trump a "feckless c--t."

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White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders previously said that "no one's defending what [Roseanne] said," so it's probably safe to assume she was not on board with Parscale's concept. Read more at The New York Times.

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.