Comedienne and 9/11 truther Rosie O'Donnell mocked Republican Senator Joni Ernst as stupid on Wednesday. The View co-hosts were discussing Ernst's rebuttal to the State of the Union and O'Donnell said of the woman, who is a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard: "Proving that anyone in the world can be a senator."
After co-host Nicolle Wallace derided the comment as "not nice," O'Donnell, who has stated Rudy Giuliani might be in on the 9/11 conspiracy, added, "not nice. But accurate." The liberal comic then speculated about the age of the first female senator from Iowa: "She's like 52, right?" Guest co-host Jen Kirkman assailed, "You can't tell with that wig."
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg sounded far more reasonable, Breaking with O'Donnell, Goldberg invited Ernst on the show:
Any time you want to come and just do this in a relaxed setting so it doesn't feel as awkward as it felt last night, I'll be more than happy to sit with you and we'll sit with you and help you because we feel you have a message. You're a woman and maybe there's a communication we can have together, so if you want to come play with us, we want to talk to you.
A partial transcript of the January 21 segment is below:
11:09
JEN KIRKMAN: People were telling me about this before I saw it and they were like, "he was so fresh. He was so snarky and he was so cocky" and I see that and he was perfectly friendly about it. It was just a little nudge but I feel like, still, because he's a black guy we have to say he was a little cocky.
11:10
[On State of the Union]
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: I don't mean to be rude, her name -- she did the rebuttal.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Joni Ernst did the rebuttal. Let me explain something. This is the worst assignment.
ROSIE O'DONNELL: Proving that anyone in the world can be a senator.
WALLACE: Wow. Not nice. Not nice. This is the worst –
O'DONNELL: Not nice, but accurate.
WALLACE: This is the worst assignment in politics.
GOLDBERG: Why?
WALLACE: The other party always gives the rebuttal and after the President of the United States stands in the chamber in front of a live audience, you have to stand in a room in front of a Teleprompter. I think the most compelling part of what Joni Ernest did last night was tell her personal story about growing up in a working class family in Iowa. Take a look.
JONI ERNST: We were raised to live simply, not to waste. It was a lesson my mother taught me every rainy morning. You see, growing up I had only one good pair of shoes, so on rainy school days, my mom would slip plastic bread bags over them to keep them dry. But I was never embarrassed because the school bus would be filled with rows and rows of young Iowans with bread bags slipped over their feet.
GOLDBERG: You know something, you know what, she's from a generation where this is what folks went through. They did live like this.
O'DONNELL: She looks like she's my age. She's not that old. She's like 52, right?
JEN KIRKMAN: You can't tell with that wig.
GOLDBERG: But you are from here.
O'DONNELL: Yeah.
GOLDBERG: When you live in the middle of nowhere, when you come from Dakota and I know you're not going to believe this, but yes, I lived in Dakota. And so, poor folks in Dakota, we think we know poor folks, we have never seen – you've never seen poor like this. And I get what she's trying to say. But what is wrong with that, what's hard about that, is that's most Americans. Most Americans have had the same experience, ma'am, that you have had. We've all – And to say that --
WALLACE: That's what she was trying to say. I mean, listen --
GOLDBERG: We're all trying to work it together. Go ahead, baby.
WALLACE: I don't want to defend the staging of that. It's hard to watch. It's an awkward performance, but she's an important -- it's important that Iowa has sent a woman. Iowa has never has sent a woman to Washington before.
GOLDBERG: Ever.
WALLACE: She's the first ever woman. She's a soldier. She's a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa national Guard and I'm happy to see another Republican woman getting national attention.
GOLDBERG: And – and here's what I will offer. Any time you want to come and just do this in a relaxed setting so it doesn't feel as awkward as it felt last night, I'll be more than happy to sit with you and we'll sit with you and help you because we feel you have a message. You're a woman and maybe there's a communication we can have together, so if you want to come play with us, we want to talk to you. We'll be right back with more hot topics.
