Disney boss Bob Iger reportedly signed off on the decision to boot longtime ABC News correspondent Terry Moran for blasting President Trump’s aide Stephen Miller.
The involvement of Iger and Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment – and one of the frontrunners to succeed Iger – underscored the magnitude of Moran’s misguided missive, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Moran was let go Tuesday, with the network saying it had decided not to renew his contract, which expires Friday.
Iger and Walden supported the decision to cut ties with the veteran newsman, a person close to the situation told the Journal.
ABC’s parent company was still reeling from forking over $16 million to settle a defamation suit brought by Trump against the network in December when the Moran fiasco threatened to ignite a new war with the Trump administration.
Earlier this week, The Post reported that Moran’s ABC News colleagues were “pissed” about the reputational harm he caused with his early Sunday morning rant — with some calling for his head.
Miller is “a world-class hater,” Moran wrote on X, adding that the White House deputy chief of staff is “a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred.”
The post ignited a social media firestorm and quickly attracted the attention of both ABC News leadership and the Trump administration.
Within hours, Rick Klein, ABC News’s vice president and Washington bureau chief, contacted Moran and asked him to take the post down, the Journal reported.
Moran immediatelty deleted the tweet.
However, the backlash was just beginning to snowball.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called Moran’s comments “unhinged and unacceptable” in a public statement on X and said her team had contacted ABC to ask “how they plan to hold Terry accountable.”
Klein consulted with ABC News’s legal and standards teams, as well as senior executives including Debra OConnell, president of ABC News Group, the Journal reported.
Moran, who joined ABC News in 1997, was soon suspended.
“ABC News 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.”
John Santucci, an executive editorial producer at ABC News who frequently liaises with Trump officials, was contacted by the administration, insiders told the Journal.
Santucci had been involved in arranging the interview between Moran and Trump in April.
Some ABC staffers reportedly felt that Moran’s post had made their jobs harder by stirring political tensions. Despite his high-profile work, including coverage of the Supreme Court, papal conclaves and his recent Trump interview, his fate was sealed.
But sources familiar with the situation told the Journal that the decision to can Moran was not due to pressure from the Trump administration.
An ABC News spokesperson declined to comment.
The Post has sought comment from Disney and the White House.
On Thursday, Moran updated his X profile to describe himself as an “independent journalist” and linked to a Substack newsletter.
Moran had a history of offering candid views on political affairs, both in internal communications and, occasionally, in public forums.
Just days before his ouster, he posted on X: “Anyone with eyes to see and a brain to think understood Trump would trash legal conservatives as soon as they got in his way,” a reference to the former president’s criticism of the conservative Federalist Society.
The network has been working to repair its relationship with the Trump camp after settling the defamation lawsuit stemming from “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos repeatedly saying that Trump was found guilty of “rape” in the civil lawsuit filed be E. Jean Carroll.
Trump was found guilty of sexual assault, a key legal distinction. He has maintained his innocence.
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