President Donald Trump personally called Roseanne Barr on Wednesday to congratulate her on her show's revival and to thank her for her support.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the call to BuzzFeed News.
The reboot of Roseanne premiered with incredibly high ratings Tuesday, more than two decades after the original series ended. Trump was "enthralled" by the “huge” ratings the show received, a person familiar with the call told the New York Times.
“It was about the most exciting thing ever, and it was just very sweet of him to congratulate us,” Barr said on Good Morning America on Thursday morning.
When asked what the president thinks about her show, she said they had a “private conversation” but that Trump is “just happy for me.”
“I've known him for many years and he's done a lot of nice things for me over the years, and it was just a friendly conversation about work and television and ratings,” Barr said. “He really understands ratings and how they measure things, and that's kind of been an interest of mine, too, for a long time.”
Barr said the Roseanne reboot is filling a void on television by showing viewers that families and people can “agree to disagree.”
“Conflict resolution and agreeing to disagree are important things that I like to feature and talk about and I haven't seen much of that anywhere, but that's what we need to do as a country,” Barr said.
“I really hope that it opens up civil conversation between people instead of just mudslinging... I think we need to be more civilized than that.”
Over the years, Barr has expressed a range of political beliefs, many of them on the far left, although more recently she has become a defender of Trump.
Like the real Roseanne, her character on the namesake show voted for Trump, while her sister Jackie, played by Laurie Metcalf, did not.
"What's up, deplorable?" Jackie says to her sister in the premiere.
On Thursday, Trump spoke about the show and his phone call with Barr while addressing a crowd of union workers and supporters in Ohio.
"Look at her ratings. Look at her ratings," Trump said. "They were unbelievable. Over 18 million people — and it was about us."
"Look at her ratings, look at her ratings!" Trump talks about calling Roseanne Barr about her TV show's performance at a speech on infrastructure https://t.co/9mxXCPx1ua
The Times published an interview with Barr earlier this week where she explained that she decided to make her character a fan of Trump because she felt it was an "accurate" representation of many working-class Americans.
When questioned by the newspaper about Roseanne's character supporting LGBT rights and same-sex marriage, which Trump has not openly supported, she objected, saying, "he’s not homophobic at all."
The president's son Donald Trump Jr. tweeted his congratulations to Barr and floated the idea of her also hosting a late-night show, while Ivanka Trump followed her on Twitter.
Wow amazing. Congrats @therealroseanne. If you’re not too busy already maybe work in a late night show too... seems there’s some demand for an alternate viewpoint. #Rosanne https://t.co/JNaLjxS0fs