President Trump calls Roseanne Barr with congrats on 'Roseanne' reboot's ratings win

Roseanne Barr's hit 90s sitcom Roseanne returned to television this week after going off the air in 1997, and its season debut was so successful that President Donald Trump called Barr to congratulate her on her success.

As the New York Times first reported, Trump called Barr on Wednesday, apparently impressed by the 18 million viewers Roseanne drew to ABC on Tuesday Night. The White House today confirmed the call with the Associated Press.

Barr, who co-created and stars in in the show, made a call herself to Good Morning America today to discuss her chat with Trump, and offered more details.

"We just kind of had a private conversation, but we talked about a lot of things," Barr said. "He was just happy for me. I've known him for a lot of years and he's done a lot of nice things for me over the years, and it's a friendly conversation about working, television, and ratings."

Barr added that Trump "really understands ratings and how they measure things," which has "been an interest of [Barr's] for a long time, too."

She attributed the enthusiastic reception for the Roseanne revival to the way the show treats relationships between people with different political views. As the new season opened, Barr's character had not spoken to her sister Jackie, played by Laurie Metcalf, since the 2016 election. (Like Barr, her character, Roseanne Conner, is a Trump supporter, while Metcalf's Jackie was for Hillary Clinton.) But they soon reconciled.

"The idea that people can agree to disagree is kind of missing from everything," Barr said. "Conflict resolution and agreeing to disagree are important things. That's what we need to do as a country — figure out what we don't like and talk to each other and discuss how we're going to get it changed or fixed. I hope [the show] opens up civil conversation between people and not just mudslinging. We need to be more civilized than that."

Donald Trump Jr. had previously offered his congratulations on Twitter.

Earlier this week, Barr appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live alongside co-star John Goodman to discuss the Roseanne reboot. During the interview, Kimmel told the actress that he was shocked over her vocal support for Trump because she is "a very socially liberal person in general." Barr responded to Kimmel by telling him to "zip that f– lip."

"I'm still the same. You all moved. You all went too f– far out, you lost everybody," she said. "A lot of us, no matter who we voted for, we don't want to see our president fail. Because we don't want [Vice President Mike] Pence. Are you f– kidding me? You want Pence? You want Pence for the freaking president? Well then, zip that f– lip."

Roseanne airs 8 p.m. Tuesdays on ABC.