REUTERS/Mike Segar
ESPN reportedly attempted to keep Jemele Hill off the air and replace her with a different black host on Wednesday. According to ThinkProgress, the sports network tried to pull Hill off her broadcast after White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described Hill's criticism of President Donald Trump as "a fireable offense." Hill tweeted on Monday that Trump was a "white supremacist," and has since come under siege from conservatives who called on ESPN to ax her. On Wednesday night, when ESPN allegedly tried to keep Hill off the air, her co-host Michael Smith, who is also black, reportedly refused to do the broadcast without her. ESPN allegedly then tried to replace both hosts with two other black hosts, both of whom refused. The network then reportedly called Hill and invited her back on the air after they balked at the prospect of replacing both black hosts with two white hosts.