Valerie Jarrett tells 'The View': Roseanne Barr's comments aren't 'what keeps me up at night'

She discussed her new book and a voting initiative she has with Michelle Obama.

July 25, 2018, 3:14 PM

Valerie Jarrett, the former adviser to President Barack Obama who was the subject of an offensive tweet by Roseanne Barr earlier this year, responded Wednesday to a recent video posted on YouTube of the actress again trying to explain the social-media post.

"Roseanne who?" Jarrett said jokingly to applause during her appearance on "The View."

In a video posted Thursday to Barr's YouTube page, the comedic actress discussed the racist tweet she posted in May about Jarrett, who is African American, that prompted the cancellation of her self-titled sitcom. In the tweet, Barr said that Jarrett was the product of a combination of "Planet of the Apes" and the Muslim Brotherhood. Barr quickly deleted the tweet but the fallout was immediate.

Former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett joined "The View" to discuss her new book "Finding My Voice."
Heidi Gutman/ABC

"I'm trying to talk about Iran! I'm trying to talk about Valerie Jarrett wrote the Iran deal," Barr says in the video posted last week. "That's what my tweet was about."

A new video shows Roseanne Barr discussing the racist tweet she posted about a former Obama administration official that prompted the cancellation of her eponymous sitcom.
Roseanne Barr/Youtube

"I thought the b---- was white. Goddammit! I thought the b---- was white! F---," Barr screams in the video.

A new video shows Roseanne Barr discussing the racist tweet she posted about a former Obama administration official that prompted the cancellation of her eponymous sitcom.
Roseanne Barr/Youtube

Barr issued an apology to Jarrett after the tweet but later slammed some of her former co-stars and retweeted defenses of her racist comments that prompted ABC to cancel her hit TV series.

On "The View" Wednesday, Jarrett repeated her original response to the Barr tweet saying: "I am just fine."

"In all seriousness, as I've said before, I'm fine," Jarrett said. "If one of you ('The View' cohosts) said something like that about me, that might hurt my feelings. But, this isn't what keeps me up at night. What keeps me up at night are those families being separated on the borders. ... [And] our children that go to school worrying about whether or not they are going to be safe. ... Racist tweets and profane videos, no. ... There are just so many issues that are more important."

Jarrett appeared on "The View" to promote her new book, "Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward," which, she said, came about after her daughter had asked her what advice she'd give her 30-year-old self.

"I wrote a book that I hope will make you laugh. I hope it will make you cry. I hope it will make you think," she said. "I hope you will say, 'That's helpful in my life, not just at 30, but at any age.'"

In addition to working on the book, Jarrett said she would be spending the next several years getting people to vote.

"Everybody from both parties need to vote. I think the future is the diversity of our country. ... I don't think that there's just one face to the Democratic Party. There's obviously not just one face to the Republican Party and so my emphasis is how can we get more people civically engaged?" she said.

Former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett joined "The View" to discuss her new book "Finding My Voice."
ABC

She also shared an initiative she's working on with former first lady Michelle Obama called "When We All Vote."

Jarrett said that celebrities from Tom Hanks to Faith Hill were helping to raise awareness about the need to vote and to get people registered.

"We will go around the country, not just with the celebrities but at the grassroots level," she said. "It's bipartisan. We think our country is stronger when every citizen votes."

ABC News' Meghan Keneally and Michael Rothman contributed to this story.

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