UC Riverside creative writing professor Reza Aslan, a well-known author who hosts a show on CNN, apologized Sunday, June 4, for a profane tweet that criticized President Donald Trump.
"This piece of s— is not just an embarrassment to America and a stain on the presidency. He's an embarrassment to humankind," Aslan wrote on TwitterSaturday. The post was deleted Sunday afternoon.
UCR spokesman John Warren confirmed that Aslan still teaches creative writing there, and said the university did not have a statement Sunday regarding his tweet.
Aslan was criticizing the president's reaction to Saturday's attack at London Bridge, which left seven dead.
Trump called for a reinstatement of his executive order, which courts have blocked, to ban travelers from six majority-Muslim countries.
Donald J. Trump✔@realDonaldTrump
We need to be smart, vigilant and tough. We need the courts to give us back our rights. We need the Travel Ban as an extra level of safety!
Trump also retweeted a Drudge Report article about the attack, which NBC Nightly News said it would not relay because the report included unconfirmed information.
NBC Nightly News✔@NBCNightlyNews
Pres. Trump has used Twitter to share news report on London incident.
We aren't relaying president's retweet, as the info is unconfirmed.
Aslan then retweeted NBC with a message calling Trump "a man baby":
Translation: the president is a man baby that must be ignored in times of crisis. https://twitter.com/nbcnightlynews/status/871144729760722944 ...
That tweet remained online Sunday afternoon.
After Aslan deleted the profane tweet, he issued an apology:
I should not have used a profanity to describe the President when responding to his shocking reaction to the #LondonAttacks. My statement:
Before it was deleted, thousands of people responded to Aslan's original tweet. Some urged CNN to fire him. Others made racist and xenophobic remarks.
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee used the incident to jab Aslan — whose last name he misspelled — for eating human brain in an episode of his CNN show "Believer" that aired earlier this year.
Gov. Mike Huckabee✔@GovMikeHuckabee
CNN host Reza Asian calls @realDonaldTrump POS-same guy who ate human brain on TV. Must have been his own brain!