Jemele Hill says calling Trump a white supremacist is like ‘saying water is wet’

Former ESPN host Jemele Hill said in an interview that she never realized a tweet last year in which she called President Trump a “white supremacist” was newsworthy.

“I thought I was saying water is wet,” Hill said in reference to the tweet during a recent appearance on a podcast from ESPN’s new Le Batard and Friends Podcast Network.  

“I didn’t even think it was controversial,” she continued.

“I was in the middle of a Twitter conversation, I was replying to somebody. If I was really trying to make a bold statement, I would have added the damn president. I didn’t, I was just talking casually with somebody,” Hill continued.

{mosads}“It wasn’t even original. That’s what is so crazy. I got famous for saying something that wasn’t original. It wasn’t new. It was not breaking news. I thought we all decided this after Charlottesville,” Hill added, referring to a deadly white supremacist rally held in Virginia in 2017. 

Hill went on to say that she also didn’t feel bad for referring to Trump as a white supremacist despite the White House’s calls for her firing at the time because she didn’t feel the comment was untruthful.

“I would have felt worse if I felt I took a shot at somebody who didn’t deserve it,” Hill said. “If I felt it was a mistake … I probably would have felt bad about it, but I never did.” 

Hill exited as co-host of ESPN’s “SportsCenter” nearly a year after she wrote the tweet under discussion.