Barbara Walters Lets Jesse Ventura Spread 9-11 Truther Rant, Gives Out Free Copies of Truther Book

Professional conspiracy theorist (and former independent Minnesota Governor) Jesse Ventura hawked his book American Conspiracies on ABC’s The View on Wednesday. Barbara Walters plays a journalist on TV, so why would she spread horrific and unproven conspiracy theories on ABC? Just for the ratings?

The View began with this promo: "Jesse Ventura’s blowing the lid off American conspiracies. Why he says you were lied to about the 9-11 attacks. How both George W. Bush elections were rigged, and why assassinations from JFK to Abe Lincoln were government coverups."

The actual interview never turned to rigged Bush elections, but Walters (and Elisabeth Hasselbeck) objected to the notion that George W. Bush allowed or participated in 3,000 American deaths. But Walters ended by spreading the Ventura book free to the audience:

"This is a fascinating discussion, and however you feel, it certainly is a fascinating book. Every one in our audience is getting a copy of it."

Hasselbeck started talking about how steel can melt at 1100 degrees Fahrenheit, and then Walters jumped in:

WALTERS: Whatever one may feel about President Bush, you say the reason this was done was to protect oil interests, or because the president wanted to have the Iraq war. That the government would deliberately kill three thousand people! To accuse the president of this, because he’s protecting oil interests, Governor, that’s a terrible accusation to make.

HASSELBECK: And it also paints him as a genius, which is against Joy’s conspiracy that he’s an idiot.

BEHAR: He’s two treats in one!

Ventura blamed Cheney for the attacks, since Bush was reading a children’s book in Florida when news of the attacks broke, causing Walters to object: "Cheney really wanted to cause the death of 3,000 people? Come on!" Ventura replied: "58,000 of us were killed in Vietnam."

Ventura also hosts a series on Time Warner's so-called "TruTV" called "Conspiracy Theory."

If all of this 9/11 truther talk on The View reminds anyone of Rosie O’Donnell, she is a fan of Jesse Ventura’s. She thinks the pro wrestler-turned-politician is brilliant. Radio Equalizer’s Brian Maloney reported that on her Sirius/XM radio show on Thursday, O’Donnell came to Ventura’s defense:

O'DONNELL (after audio of Barbara Walters decrying Ventura’s "terrible accusation"): Is that such a terrible accusation? I don't know.

JANETTE BARBER (executive producer): You have to look at the truth! Remember that guy Clarke, what’s his name? He wrote the book.

O’DONNELL: Richard Clarke.

BARBER: In January [2001], before 9/11 they were talking about Iraq, war in Iraq. We gotta start a war in Iraq.

O'DONNELL: What he’s saying, the impetus for going there – right? -- was to get us into war in the Mideast the American people would rally behind. And there was a whole lot of meetings where people said there needed to be a Pearl Harbor-like incident to rally the support of the Americans. Those are facts you can look up.