ABC News has decided to not renew its contract with senior national correspondent Terry Moran over a social media post in which he referred to White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and Donald Trump as “world class” haters.
Moran had already been suspended over the since deleted post on X over the weekend, on Tuesday the network announced they will cut ties with him.
“We are at the end of our agreement with Terry Moran and based on his recent post – which was a clear violation of ABC News policies – we have made the decision to not renew,” an ABC News spokesperson said in a statement.
“At ABC News, we hold all of our reporters to the highest standards of objectivity, fairness and professionalism, and we remain committed to delivering straightforward, trusted journalism,” the spokesperson said.
In the post on Sunday, Moran wrote: “The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism. Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller. It’s not brains. It’s bile.”
He continued: “Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate. Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred only a means to an end, and that end his his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”
Several Trump administration officials criticized ABC over Moran’s post.
Miller responded to the post on X writing, “The most important fact about Terry’s full public meltdown is what it shows about the corporate press in America. 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.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt publicly demanded that ABC discipline Moran.
Moran’s firing comes months after ABC agreed to pay a $15 million settlement with Trump over allegedly defamatory comments made about him by anchor George Stephanopoulos related to a civil trial where Trump was found liable for sexually abusing the writer E. Jean Carroll.
