Friday at the Hot Topics table, the hosts of the View discussed President Trump calling out the writer of the anonymous New York Times op-ed, as “treasonous.” The liberal hosts were aghast at Trump’s response, saying he was the real villain of this story. The panel compared Trump to former President Nixon and Whoopi even claimed that it was now “dangerous” for anyone to criticize Trump.
They led the segment discussing all the White House officials who had come out denying they had written the anonymous op-ed. After co-host Sunny Hostin slammed Melania Trump for issuing her own statement condemning the writer, co-host Abby Huntsman said she thinks this op-ed will come back to “bite this person” because now anyone who criticizes Trump will be under scrutiny:
“It's made it really difficult for people that are serving in the administration, that are the quote unquote adults. But now, they're going to think twice every time they do push back against the President because they're trying to figure out who this person is,” she gushed. Whoopi went off that paranoid note, suggesting that Trump was going to personally stop any critics from airing their grievances against him:
“Don't you think it -- does it not bother anyone that constructive criticism of a sitting president now feels like a dangerous thing to do in this country?” she asked. Her fellow hosts loved that, adding their agreement.
“It didn’t used to be,” Whoopi suggested, apparently forgetting Obama’s Justice Department targeted conservative organizations through the IRS, and spied on reporters that scrutinized Obama (and those weren’t even people who worked inside the White House!)
She went on to gush about how Trump’s predecessors put up with criticism honorably, borrowing Hillary Clinton’s rhetoric to slam Trump for not staying silent:
WHOOPI: For someone who wants to tear down people's legacies, you know, Obama took as much crap as any other president. [ Applause ] And -- he took it from all sides. And he still did his job. George Bush took crap from everybody. Both Georges. George Bush Sr. and Junior.
If you don't have the cojones to take the critique that is our right, which makes us Americans, because we're supposed to be able to say,” I don't like what you're doing,” without fear of retaliation. And the minute -- [ applause ]
HOSTIN: Yeah. Good point.
WHOOPI:-- This idea that he is -- they better stop doing -- I mean, all that puffing up is like, dude, what are you doing?
Co-host Joy Behar ended the segment by comparing Trump to Nixon, saying he was “paranoid” and would be soon “speaking to the portraits” on the walls of the White House (Behar was ironically referring to claims made in Bob Woodward’s book on Nixon:)
He's the one who committed treason in Helsinki? This is very similar to Nixon who was paranoid at the end. He was speaking to portraits of former presidents. I don’t know if you remember this. He was speaking to the portraits. They're all against me. He had an enemies list. This is deja Vu all over again for anybody that remembers Watergate. He had an enemies list. Which I didn't take that time. But I'm on this one. [ Laughter ]
