In a pre-recorded episode of ABC’s The View, the liberal ladies celebrated Presidents Day Monday by being “mad as hell” about President Trump’s executive orders and commiserating on ways to help the “resistance” to stop spinning its wheels. Together, they threw around empty buzzwords about the need to “build community support,” look at “how they're communicating,” how they “need to form alliances,” and that they need to build a “website.” But when one floated the idea of actually talking to Trump supporters, moderator Whoopi Goldberg didn’t want to have any of it.
After playing a soundbite of War Room host Steve Bannon talking about Trump flooding the zone with executive activities to keep “the opposition” off balance, Goldberg seemed confused about whether or not that included the Trump haters of The View. “Are we the ‘other side’ he's talking about?” she asked the table.
“He goes on to say that the opposition party is the media,” warned chronically aggrieved co-host Sunny Hostin. She went on to warn that flooding the zone was “a deliberate tactic used by regimes, used by powerful entities to manipulate and control people by bombarding them with so much information that they feel overwhelmed. It's called the shock and awe tactic.”
Hostin went on to propose that a way for them to manage the flow of information and get over their “fear” of the Trump presidency was community organizing:
And so you've got this rapid influx of information or change, and it creates the sense of disorientation and fear that I think a lot of us are feeling, and it makes it difficult to critically analyze, and then of course, react appropriately.
So the suggestion that has been made, and Whoopi, you've said this over and over again, that you take the time to process the information, you prioritize the key issues, and you build community support to share the burden of understanding what's really going on, and then you can respond collectively to the situation.
Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin came off as ignorant of how to properly address former presidents when she commented on how, during the Biden years, Trump “more or less had a presidency in waiting down in Florida. He had policy staffers, he had advisers that actually called him ‘Mr. President.’”
Farah Griffin lamented that with his second term, Trump had gotten “a sense of” “how things worked” in Washington D.C. and the executive branch, and now knows “how you bypass Congress” and “how you can do things quicker.”
She seemed oblivious to how what she said was essentially a tacit admission that those levers were always there and were used by presidents before Trump was in office.
Further, Farah Griffin bemoaned how the Democrats were struggling to keep up with Trump and were using outdated models that used to stymie presidents:
He is working in a 21st century media environment that is outpacing the traditional media, but also the opposition. I think Dems are kind of playing on a 1990s playbook of, like, if I go speak on the Senate floor if I go on Meet the Press, it's going to stop him. And they’ve got to get quick and smart if they’re wanting to push back and how they're communicating now because he knows how to overwhelm the system.
Having worked on a few failed campaigns, fake Republican Ana Navarro put on her moth-eaten strategist hat to think up ways for “the opposition, the resistance, whatever you want to call the folks that are against everything that Donald Trump is doing,” to reach the people.
Navarro wanted them to use “social media” and build a “website,” “so that people can understand what is happening.” She also wanted them to “form alliances” like the Latinos and “those who sympathize with Palestine,” or “Women, you know, African Americans upset over the DEI stuff he's trying to dismantle willy-nilly” teaming up with “LGBTQ people.”
“We all need to come together and show them that we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore,” she proclaimed.
But when Farah Griffin floated the idea of trying to include Trump voters in that coalition, Goldberg wouldn’t have any of those people:
FARAH GRIFFIN: So, you have to be able to talk to people who it doesn't have to be all this or all that but find movement on the things that matter.
GOLDBERG: It's hard to talk to people who support people who think you don't matter in the country.
FARAH GRIFFIN: But it's not supporting the person though.
GOLDBERG: No. No. When you support THAT person –
“That's the thing. When people tell you who they are, you got to believe them,” Goldberg proclaimed before going to a commercial break.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
February 17, 2025
11:03:20 a.m. Eastern(…)
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Are we the other side he's talking about?
SUNNY HOSTIN: He goes on to say that the opposition party is the media, and he says, ‘They can only focus on one thing at a time. All we have to do is flood the zone. Every day we hit them with three things. They'll bite on one, but we've got to start with muzzle velocity doing it all the time, all the time, all the time.
And if you look at social sciences, they have studied this, and one sociologist in particular, Jennifer Walters, she makes this is really interesting point that she says, this is a deliberate tactic used by regimes, used by powerful entities to manipulate and control people by bombarding them with so much information that they feel overwhelmed. It's called the shock and awe tactic.
And so you've got this rapid influx of information or change, and it creates the sense of disorientation and fear that I think a lot of us are feeling, and it makes it difficult to critically analyze, and then of course, react appropriately.
So the suggestion that has been made, and Whoopi, you've said this over and over again, that you take the time to process the information, you prioritize the key issues, and you build community support to share the burden of understanding what's really going on, and then you can respond collectively to the situation.
SARA HAINES: When you watch the barrage of actions – And by the way, I've never been a fan of executive orders by either party because the whole point of having Congress pass laws is those are the elected officials.
But this, like, lambasting of everything is why some of us, including myself, said that he was a threat to democracy, Donald Trump. People said it's hyperbole, it's dangerous talk. No. It was literal talk. What we said was there's a reason there's foundational three parties. If we start to skew those lines and the vice president is now shopping around that the courts can't stop the president, you know, this is the beginning of the problem.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: A couple of things. Keep in mind that when Donald Trump was out of office of four years, he more or less had a presidency in waiting down in Florida. He had policy staffers he had advisers that actually called him “Mr. President.” So, he's coming in with a policy agenda that he had been working on, and he was ready to go on day one.
And what makes it very different than the first Trump term is he didn't really know how things worked. And now he's got a sense of, this is how you can get around the courts potentially. This is how you bypass Congress. This is how you can do things quicker.
There are major pros and cons to that, but one of the things he is excellent at and the media takes the bait often is he writes himself into every story. Like, just thinking about it, he didn't just do the Super Bowl interview. He attended the Super Bowl. When we have the astronauts stuck on the International Space Station, Elon Musk was already going to get them, but he took credit; “I'm going to get the astronauts back.” When TikTok was down, to 167 million people, ‘Thank you Donald Trump, that we're back up.’
He is working in a 21st century media environment that is outpacing the traditional media, but also the opposition. I think Dems are kind of playing on a 1990s playbook of, like, if I go speak on the Senate floor if I go on Meet the Press, it's going to stop him. And they’ve got to get quick and smart if they’re wanting to push back and how they're communicating now because –
HAINES: They have to unify.
FARAH GRIFFIN: - he knows how to overwhelm the system.
ANA NAVARRO: What I think Democrats need to do, the opposition, the resistance, whatever you want to call the folks that are against everything that Donald Trump is doing, we need to have a way of reaching people, whether it's social media, whether it's a website, whether it's what -- so that people can understand what is happening, and I absolutely think we need to form alliances, and we can't just be --
HOSTIN: Yeah.
NAVARRO: -- groups, individual groups because Latinos are super upset by the fact that he's racially profiling as a – portraying immigrants like everybody is a criminal. Arabs now and those who sympathize with Palestine are super upset because he's trying to treat it as a real estate deal. Women, you know, African Americans upset over the DEI stuff he's trying to dismantle willy-nilly. LGBTQ people. We all need to come together and show them that we're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore.
FARAH GRIFFIN: But people also have to get out of their echo chambers because, like, everybody was, like, Project 2025, Project 2025. If you hated project 2025, that worked for you. If you weren't super clear or you liked some parts but not others, you have to -- Democrats have to be willing to go to uncomfortable spaces.
GOLDBERG: I think this is beyond Democrats and Republicans.
FARAH GRIFFIN: You're right, and I don't like the labels of all of it and because most people are multifaceted and don't fit into one bucket. But you have to have conversations with people who disagree with you if you want to build coalitions to pushback because you're going to find there are a lot of things Donald Trump does that I agree with, and there are things that I think that are dangerous, reckless, and want to call out. So, you have to be able to talk to people who it doesn't have to be all this or all that but find movement on the things that matter.
GOLDBERG: It's hard to talk to people who support people who think you don't matter in the country.
FARAH GRIFFIN: But it's not supporting the person though.
GOLDBERG: No. No. When you support THAT person --
FARAH GRIFFIN: Right, but --
GOLDBERG: -- t brings -- go ahead.
FARAH GRIFFIN: But I don't support that person. My point being that I don't disagree with everything Trump is doing, so we have to be able to have conversations, but we do agree on these things, so how can we get together on those issues?
GOLDBERG: Well when we find the stuff that we agree on, that's what we do, but when we find the stuff that is disagreeable to the majority – Now, I didn't find anything of interest for me in Project 2025. I didn't feel like this was geared to us as a nation. I felt it was geared to very specific folks, and that bothered the poo out of me.
But I understand what you're saying, and yeah, we do have to talk to each other. That's the beauty. That's the thing. When people tell you who they are, you got to believe them.
HOSTIN: Believe them the first time.
GOLDBERG: We'll be right back.
