On The View Thursday, each host joined Republicans in strongly condemning the violence at the Capitol yesterday at the hands of a pro-Trump mob, while Whoopi Goldberg bragged about how they had been right about President Trump being mentally unfit, all along. Meghan McCain invoked the 25th Amendment to get Trump out of office, but the other hosts chose to demonize the police, whining that they weren’t harsh enough compared to how they reacted to the “largely peaceful” left-wing protests.
Joy Behar raged that Capitol Police had “enabled” insurrectionists to endanger Democrats like Dianne Feinstein: “The whole ugly demonstration showed you that the police are capable of restraining themselves. They know how to do it. You saw it. Not only that. Many of them enabled these insurrectionists to go into the Capitol and endanger the lives of people like Dianne Feinstein who is, like, 85 years old,” she criticized. After claiming certain GOP congressmen should be punished, she also blamed conservative media for the violence: “Media on the right has to be sanctioned,” she demanded.
Sunny Hostin also didn't have her facts straight, suggesting law enforcement was too lenient compared to left-wing protests.
“I was thinking, where's the National Guard? Where are the rubber bullets? Where is the tear gas? Where is the show of force protecting federal property?” she insisted, complaining there were only 50 arrests yesterday compared to over 400 for BLM riots in the first few days of the George Floyd protests across the country.
She tried to downplay the actions of violent left-wing protesters again later with ABC News correspondent, Martha Raddatz:
SUNNY HOSTIN: Martha, there were videos on social media of Capitol Police taking selfies with rioters and even opening up some of the barricades for the rioters to pass through. These rioters, some of them were even armed. I would like to contrast that with the kind of response we saw over the Summer with largely peaceful protests for racial justice in D.C. They were quickly met with tear gas, militarized police, rubber bullets. As someone who covered both, how did the responses that you witnessed compare?
Hostin made a number of misleading statements here about those supposedly peaceful protests, and though completely unjustifiable, there appears to just one officer who posed for a photo yesterday. But the hyperbole was only encouraged by Raddatz who eagerly agreed with Hostin’s sentiment: “Oh, they were extraordinarily different. Exactly what you said, Sunny,” she began, even saying that they were basically just “directing traffic” yesterday.
Like Behar, Hostin also bitterly scorned the immediate condemnation of violence from the GOP, saying they got credit for nothing:
When you do see some Republicans standing up and saying, enough is enough, some of our senators and some of our congressmen, I don't think that at this point they get credit because they have poured gasoline on this flame for four years. The chickens have come home to roost for them. They do not get credit now.
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Here's the transcript:
The View
1/7/2021
JOY BEHAR: The whole ugly demonstration showed you that the police are capable of restraining themselves. They know how to do it. You saw it. Not only that. Many of them enabled these insurrectionists to go into the capitol and endanger the lives of people like Dianne Feinstein who is, like, 85 years old. Had to be hiding. I mean it’s outrageous. I don't forgive Lindsey Graham. He can go on the floor of the Capitol and cry his eyes out. He is part and parcel of this problem, and so is Mitch Mcconnell and this idiot Josh Hawley. He needs to be stripped of all committee -- things that he's been doing. Ted Cruz, Rudy Giuliani, go back to the landscaping business. You are done.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Yep. Yeah. And when we come back, Sunny, I got to talk to you because watching nothing happen, no police, nobody there, and then looking back in the Summertime and seeing what was going on when people were marching, we’ll talk more about that when we come back.
(...)
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Welcome back. We were just talking about the lack of police presence at yesterday's assault on democracy when domestic terrorists stormed the Capitol. So sunny, I know what I noticed instantaneously. Did this cross your mind also when this was unfolding? Did you think, where -- where's the presence we're used to seeing in D.C. at times like this?
SUNNY HOSTIN: No question, Whoopi. I was thinking, where's the National Guard? Where are the rubber bullets? Where is the tear gas? Where is the show of force protecting federal property? I was thinking about Christopher David. Remember that Navy veteran that was beaten by the federal police during the Black Lives Matter protest, who was standing in unity with his black brothers and sisters valiantly I believe protesting police brutality. Meghan was talking about the fact that she was struck by the American flag being waved by the rioters and the seditionists in our Capitol. I was struck by the Confederate flag being waved in our nation's Capitol.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Mm-hmm.
HOSTIN: I thought, I would never seen--
MEGHAN MCCAIN: It didn't even happen in the midst of the war. It didn't even happen in the midst of the Civil War.
HOSTIN: That's right. And I thought the type of police restraint that we saw is the type of police restraint that I wish had been shown during the Black Lives Matter protests and the protests against police brutality, the protests against the murder of George Floyd, the protests against the murder [Sic] of Jacob Blake, the protests against the murder of Breonna Taylor. Where was that police restraint? It was nowhere, and I also thought, where are the arrests? We had at least 438 arrests, you know, when there were Black Lives Matter rallies and protests.
[Cross-talk]
HOSTIN: There were about 50 arrests yesterday. It was so -- it was so jarring to me that this is the state of our democracy, and then when you do see some Republicans standing up and saying, enough is enough, some of our senators and some of our congressmen, I don't think that at this point they get credit because they have poured gasoline on this flame for four years. The chickens have come home to roost for them. They do not get credit now.
