On Monday’s The View, the hosts opened up the show by crying outrage because President Trump praised a Long Island lockdown protest last Friday in a tweet. Joy Behar in particular was upset because angry protesters harassed a local news reporter there, so she compared them to the "white supremacists and neonazis" in Charlottesville, whose protest ended in violence.
After putting up the tweet of Trump calling the protesters “great people,” Behar claimed this was just like when Trump called “neo nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, ‘great people.’” That is a false assertion the media loves to repeat nearly three years later. Behar went on to laughably claim that Trump attacks the press as fake news because they “tell you the truth” and that hurts his reelection chances:
Nothing that he ever does that you know who does, nothing surprises me. I'm certainly not surprised by this because let's not forget when he called white supremacists and neonazis in Charlottesville great people, quote/unquote. You know, it's his M.O. To destroy the press because the press will tell you the truth and the truth hurts him in his re-election plan and, you know, he's worried. He's very worried that Joe Biden is pulling ahead. Not that this is anything new. He's always been a denigrator of the truth calling the press the enemy of the people which is right out of Putin's book and Stalin and Hitler and all the dictators that he admires so much. I'm not sure he admired Hitler, but he certainly admires Putin, and that's what they do is denigrate the press. That's the first thing dictators do. Yeah.
Co-host Sunny Hostin also claimed that the protesters were a just a fringe group of Trump supporters who were "political ploys." Still, the media finds time to hype tiny left-wing protests.
So The View is upset by a few protesters yelling “fake news” and obscenities at a reporter. But where was their outrage when a reporter was actually physically attacked by Antifa last year? In 2017 the show defended the violent left-wing group. Joy Behar actually claimed left-wing violence was justified while Whoopi Goldberg said these acts of violence were fictional and “made up by the right.”
However, co-host Meghan McCain pushed back on her co-hosts' sentiments for the second time today, saying the media needs to realize why they are the least trusted institution:
I never agree with violence or yelling at the press because for all the obvious reasons I don't think any of us do, but the American press has the worst approval rating of any and all American institutions, particularly with young people. The ages 35 and younger there's the least trust in our media than any demographic, and I think part of the problem is when you blanket statement protesters like this as neonazis in Charlottesville, these people their sentiment is, I understand. People are very frustrated right now. They want to go back to work. There are a lot of people in this country that would rather risk getting coronavirus than letting their business go under and having their families starve. I do think, maybe the media should take a look at why there is so much anger at them.
Read more in the transcript below:
The View
5/18/20
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Now the protest organizers apologized for the bad apples who apparently went after the reporter, but you know who retweeted the report calling them great people. Now does it surprise anyone? Does it surprise you, joy?
JOY BEHAR: Nothing that he ever does that you know who does, nothing surprises me. I'm certainly not surprised by this because let's not forget when he called white supremacists and neonazis in Charlottesville great people, quote/unquote. You know, it's his M.O. To destroy the press because the press will tell you the truth and the truth hurts him in his re-election plan and, you know, he's worried. He's very worried that Joe Biden is pulling ahead. Not that this is anything new. He's always been a denigrator of the truth calling the press the enemy of the people which is right out of Putin's book and Stalin and hitler and all the dictators that he admires so much. I'm not sure he admired Hitler, but he certainly admires Putin, and that's what they do is denigrate the press. That's the first thing dictators do. Yeah.
WHOOPI: Right. Sunny, you don't think this is how most of the country is feeling right now. Is that right?
SUNNY HOSTIN: No, I really -- that's right. I really don't, and I think a lot of these protests are planned by small select groups. They're generally Trump supporters and they are certainly planned, and there have been a lot of polls that have been taken recently. The pew report has done one, and The Washington Post has done one. What's interesting to me 79% of the population, Whoopi, that has responded has said they are in favor of tighter restrictions if that will slow the spread, and 75% of those that have been furloughed, that have lost their positions, that are not being paid still support these restrictions. So those that have been affected the most still want the stay-at-home restrictive orders, and so I think that this is just sort of people playing, you know, into Trump's hands. These are, like, political ploys.
WHOOPI: Right, and Meghan, you think this is getting more attention than it deserves? This story?
MCCAIN: Well, I do think Sunny is right that it's a small group of protesters in Long Island, but I think their sentiments are something that I understand. I never agree with violence or yelling at the press because for all the obvious reasons I don't think any of us do, but the American press has the worst approval rating of any and all American institutions, particularly with young people. The ages 35 and younger there's the least trust in our media than any demographic, and I think part of the problem is when you blanket statement protesters like this as neonazis in Charlottesville, these people their sentiment is, I understand. People are very frustrated right now. They want to go back to work. There are a lot of people in this country that would rather risk getting coronavirus than letting their business go under and having their families starve. I do think, maybe the media should take a look at why there is so much anger at them. And its not just something--Yes Trump uses it to his benefit and gins up a lot of his supporters that way, but why do you think there is such a huge distrust of these kind of institutions right now? I think part of it is there's just not of a lot of representation for conservatives and Republicans and Trump supporters outside of Fox News which is why Fox News is so popular. So I don't agree with the way people were behaving. It's certainly not my attitude, but I understand the sentiment behind it.
WHOOPI: Well, what was really interesting was this reporter went out there to find out how they were feeling so that he could broadcast their stories, but the other thing is I keep asking myself, 'Who in this country doesn't want to go back to work?' Now you can talk about degrees, but I don't think anybody in the country doesn't want to go back to work, but I think some people feel that they would be putting other people at risk were they to re-surge with their form of COVID-19. I think people are wanting to go back and do all of this, but to find a better way, and I think part of the problem has been the messiness out of Washington on how to do this, and the fact that no one knows very much about this disease which seems to be four months old. So I think there's a lot of mess in all of this, but I want to stress, again, I don't know anyone who doesn't want to go back to work. Anyone. I don't know anyone, and I don't know why people would put themselves on the line in order to perhaps get COVID or pass it on to someone else with being cognizant of that possibility...
