ABC News has suspended one of its senior national correspondents, a little more than a month after he sat down for an interview with President Donald Trump. On Sunday, June 8, ABC News confirmed that it had suspended Terry Moran, over disparaging remarks he posted about the president and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
What did Moran write?
“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred,” Moran wrote in a now-deleted post that was shared shortly after midnight Sunday. “He’s a world-class hater.”
Moran went on to write, “You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.”
Of the president, Moran said that he too is a “world-class hater,” before adding a distinction: “But his hatred [is] only means to an end, and that end his [sic] his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”
In a statement shared with various media outlets, an ABC News spokesperson confirmed Moran’s suspension. “ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others,” the spokesperson said. “The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards.”
Miller, White House respond
Miller responded to the post early Sunday morning, saying that Moran “pulled off his mask,” revealing himself to be the “radical” he always was.
“The most important fact about Terry’s full public meltdown is what it shows about the corporate press in America,” Miller wrote on X. “For decades, the privileged anchors and reporters narrating and gatekeeping our society have been radicals adopting a journalist’s pose. Terry pulled off his mask.”
As of press time, Trump had not commented on Moran’s posts. However, both White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance have come to Miller’s defense, with Leavitt saying the White House had “reached out to ABC to inquire about how they plan to hold Terry accountable.”
For many critics of the Trump administration, Miller is one of its most visible and ardent proponents of anti-immigrant and white nationalist ideologies.
For instance, in leaked emails published by the Southern Poverty Law Center in 2019, Miller encouraged the media outlet Breitbart to write about a 1973 novel called “The Camp of the Saints.” In it, French author Jean Raspail details a fictionalized account of “white genocide” and “great replacement” theories. In recent years, the book has become popular among white nationalists and neo-Nazis.
In April, Moran sat down with Trump to discuss his first 100 days in office. The interview was nothing short of contentious, with Trump at one point calling Moran’s question stupid and saying he “doesn’t have 100% confidence we’re going to finish this interview.”