President Donald Trump coined a new nickname for actress Debra Messing on Thursday after she set the Twitterverse on fire days earlier by seemingly voicing support for a blacklist of Hollywood conservatives.
“Bad ‘actress’ Debra The Mess Messing is in hot water,” Trump said. “She wants to create a ‘Blacklist’ of Trump supporters, [and] is being accused of McCarthyism. Is also being accused of being a Racist because of the terrible things she said about blacks and mental illness.”
The president’s remarks were in reference to an article first published by The Hollywood Reporter about a fundraising event for Trump’s 2020 campaign in Beverly Hills, California. Messing, an outspoken critic of the president, took to Twitter on Friday to write: “Please print a list of all attendees please. The public has a right to know.”
Messing received widespread backlash for harkening back to the vociferous campaign, led by former Sen. Joseph McCarthy, to blacklist individuals who were accused of supporting communism in the 1950s.
The “Will & Grace” actress also simultaneously received blowback for promoting a sign on an Alabama church that accused black Trump supporters of having a mental illness, which the president giddily pointed out.
Trump further compared Messing’s actions to that of Roseanne Barr, who was fired from her hit show on ABC for lashing out at Valerie Jarrett, a former advisor to President Barack Obama, in a vulgar rant. Barr’s show “Roseanne” received record-breaking viewership after it was revived in 2017 with the eponymous character portrayed as a vocal Trump supporter.
“If Roseanne Barr said what she did, even being on a much higher rated show, she would have been thrown off of television,” Trump continued. “Will Fake News NBC allow a McCarthy style Racist to continue? ABC fired Roseanne. Watch the double standard.”
However, after #RacistDebraMessing began trending on Twitter on Wednesday, Messing apologized for supporting the racist Alabama church sign but still defended her actions by contending that the Republican Party has been targeting black constituents by actively trying to suppress their vote. There has been no evidence to corroborate that claim.
She also denied ever calling for a blacklist “of anyone for any reason,” but further claimed that she was, in fact, calling for more transparency so that consumers would be able to decide whether they want to boycott goods and services based on the producers’ political preferences.
“The info is publicly available,” Messing said. “I as a consumer want to know where MY money is going when I pay for entertainment. Just as you have the right to not watch [Will & Grace because] I don’t support Trump, I have the right to not go see … a movie with someone supporting babies in cages.”
“It is First Amendment. Information, knowledge. That is how we make decisions. Whether to see a movie or whom to vote for. Transparency is needed,” she continued. “Again, the lists are available to the public. There is nothing threatening about asking politely for the information.”