ABC News suspended the network correspondent Terry Moran on Sunday after he wrote on social media that Stephen Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, was “a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred” and called him “a world-class hater.”
Mr. Moran made the comments in a late-night post on X, in which he also referred to President Trump as “a world-class hater.” The post was later deleted, but screenshots circulated on social media and drew a quick rebuke from Mr. Trump’s allies, including Vice President JD Vance, who called Mr. Moran’s post an “absolutely vile smear.”
An ABC News spokeswoman said on Sunday that Mr. Moran “has been suspended pending further evaluation.”
“ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others,” the network said in a statement. “The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards.”
Mr. Moran, whose title is senior national correspondent, interviewed Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in April. He joined ABC News in 1997.
In his lengthy post, Mr. Moran said of Mr. Miller that “you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate.”
Mr. Trump and members of his political movement often accuse major news organizations of anti-conservative bias. In Mr. Vance’s response on Sunday, he urged Americans to remember Mr. Moran’s comments “every time you watch ABC’s coverage of the Trump administration.”
Last year, ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, agreed to pay $16 million to settle a defamation lawsuit that Mr. Trump had filed against the network over on-air comments by the anchor George Stephanopoulos. At the time, the agreement was viewed as a remarkable concession to a politician by a broadcast network.
Mr. Miller, who is among Mr. Trump’s most powerful aides, is considered the mastermind of the administration’s crackdown on immigration. He has spoken extensively in recent days in defense of federal immigration raids in Los Angeles and denounced the demonstrators who have protested the government’s actions.
“Deport the invaders, or surrender to insurrection,” Mr. Miller wrote in a post on X on Saturday, in an apparent reference to the protesters.
Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016.
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