Jemele Hill's deleted SOTU tweet included an alleged Trump assassination reference

Jemele Hill, former ESPN personality and current columnist for The Atlantic, deleted a State of the Union tweet that allegedly included a veiled joke about President Donald Trump being assassinated, according to Fox News.

Hill, who is vocally anti-Trump, made the comment in reply to a tweet from comedic television host Daniel Baker, who goes by the nickname Desus Nice.

Baker, who is from the Bronx, wrote that New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should interrupt the State of the Union address by yelling "Whose mans is this?"

Hill responded to Baker in a tweet that she later deleted, but which of which NewsBusters obtained a screen capture. It read, "Nah, she gotta yell: GETCHO HAND OUT MY POCKET."

The reference wasn't obvious to many readers, but some pointed out that one of Malcolm X's assassins yelled that phrase right before Malcolm X was killed.

According to accounts of the assassination, Malcolm X was preparing to speak in a Harlem ballroom in February 1965 when a scuffle broke out in the audience. A man reportedly yelled to someone else, "N****, get your hand outta my pocket."

While his bodyguards were distracted with the altercation, three men killed Malcolm X with at least 16 gunshots.

Hill has previously been at the center of anti-Trump controversy. In 2017, she called Trump a white supremacist on Twitter. The remark drew the attention and condemnation of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and the president himself.

ESPN did not punish her, although she was suspended later in the year for violating the company's social media policy by suggesting that fans boycott Dallas Cowboys advertisers over owner Jerry Jones' no-tolerance stance on national anthem protests.

Hill left ESPN in the Fall of 2018 and shortly thereafter joined The Atlantic as a staff writer covering sports, race, politics and culture.