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Roseanne Barr: 'I would be a better president than Oprah'

It’s no secret Roseanne Barr voted for Donald Trump, as did her alter-ego on the reboot of her ABC show Roseanne–and for good reason, Barr said at TCA on Monday, explaining she wanted to represent the working classes in America.

“I’ve always attempted to portray a realistic portrait of the American people and working-class people,” she said, “and in fact, it was working-class people who elected Trump, so I felt that yeah, that was very real, and something that needed to be discussed and especially about polarization in the family, and people actually hating other people for the way they voted, which I feel is not American.”

 

Barr was asked about her personal decision to support Trump and whether she would vote for Oprah Winfrey for president. “I do love Oprah,” she said. “Of course I love Oprah like everybody else, but you know what? I think it was time for us as a country to shake things up and try something different.”

As for whether she would support Susan Sarandon, Barr raised a few laughs when she said, “I think I would be a better president than Oprah and Susan Sarandon, and possibly even President Trump. And I did run in 2012.”

In the first incarnation of the show, the Roseanne character had expressed disgust with racism, and when asked why she would now be voting for Trump, since he’s a racist, Barr told the questioner, “Well that’s your opinion.”

But when pressed on Trump’s anti-Mexican comments, Barr responded, “He says a lot of crazy sh*t… I’m not a Trump apologist, but there are a lot of things he has said and done that I don’t agree with, like there’s probably a lot of things Hillary Clinton has done and said that you don’t agree with, and so nobody is brainwashed into agreeing with 100 percent of what anybody says, let alone a politician or a candidate.”

In wrapping up the panel discussion, Barr added, “It’s always the lesser of two evils, and we all have to face our own conscience in how we do that…I think it’s the time to close ranks and I would really like to see an end to ‘hatriedism’ in this country.”

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