Not surprisingly, the ladies of The View decided to politicize the shooting that took place at a synagogue in Poway, California over the weekend. While the topics of gun control and cracking down on “hate speech” came up throughout the course of the conversation, no one took it further than co-host Joy Behar, who told President Trump that he was “the culprit” of the attack.
After slamming President Trump for his most recent comments about Charlottesville, Behar criticized the President for talking out of “both sides of his mouth” by saying “our hearts are with the victims” in response to the Poway shooting after defending people who chanted “Jews will not replace us.”
Behar continued: “he’s provocative. He gives dog whistles constantly to these people.” After trashing Kellyanne Conway for trying to defend President Trump, Behar directed a message to the President: “Take responsibility for your actions, Mr. President…You are the culprit.” Fellow Trump-hater Joe Scarborough had similar analysis on MSNBC, declaring that “the blood that is spilled” from these kinds of attacks is on President Trump’s hands.
Co-host Sunny Hostin blamed AR-15s and assault weapons for the shooting in Poway and other recent mass shootings at places of worship. Co-host Whoopi Goldberg cut Hostin off before she had a chance to take the gun control push further.
Strangely, supposed conservative Meghan McCain quoted a statistic from the Southern Poverty Law Center noting a 30 percent increase in hate crimes. Far from an objective watchdog group, the SPLC has become nothing more than a “hate-filled, anti-Christian, anti-conservative organization which uses bullying tactics to advance its liberal agenda.” The SPLC’s “bullying tactics” include smearing groups it disagrees with, such as the Family Research Council, as hate groups.
The conversation wrapped up with a discussion about hate speech and how “it shouldn’t be protected,” according to Behar. Goldberg complained that she did not think hate speech was protected “but apparently it is and I don’t know how that works.” It’s called the First Amendment, Whoopi.
For the record, the FBI did receive a tip about the threatening social media post left by the Poway shooter about five minutes before the shooting took place. Unfortunately, by the time the FBI figured out who wrote the post, it was too late to stop the tragedy.
It looks like the ladies of The View have decided to take the advice of President Obama’s former Chief of Staff and outgoing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” They used the shooting in Poway as an excuse to call for gun control, banning hate speech, and, of course, to trash President Trump.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Monday’s edition of The View is below. Click “expand” to read more.
The View
04/29/19
11:01 AM
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: So, yet again, it’s happened in this country, something horrible. Saturday, a white nationalist allegedly opened fire in a San Diego synagogue; killing one woman, injuring three others. 19-year old suspected shooter, also being investigated for a recent mosque fire; wrote an online manifesto saying he was inspired by recent acts of terror from other white nationalists. Now, these incidents are on the rise. Why and, and what, how do we, what do we do about this? What do we about this?
JOY BEHAR: Well, the first thing is maybe name it as terrorism. I don’t think they name it quite terrorism unless it’s somebody from out of the country or some, you know…
SUNNY HOSTIN: Domestic terror.
BEHAR: Yeah. But I mean, the incidents are all white nationalists. You know, there’s this one and then Christchurch and Tree of Life synagogue, Mother Emmanuel AME Church in South Carolina; that terrible one. They’re all terrible. Oak Creek Sikh Temple and it’s, it’s across the board, it’s Muslims and Christians…
GOLDBERG: Right. So…
BEHAR: …and Jews.
GOLDBERG: So is there, is there, is there as much anger about domestic terrorism as there is about exterior terrorism?
ABBY HUNTSMAN: It hits the very fabric of who we are, what this country was founded on. Right? I mean, terrorism is terrorism. And I think, to Joy’s point, how important it is for our elected officials to come out immediately. The President did condemn this one, he called the rabbi. But we haven’t always seen the reaction as immediate, and seeing it as dangerous as it is. I just want to give a shout out to the rabbi of the synagogue because he, along with some other people, stepped up and were heroes in that moment. And he said I turned around and I saw a group of children in the banquet hall including my own granddaughter. And I just ran, not even knowing that my own fingers were blown off, and he took the kids together, got them outside, went into the sanctuary, got everyone out safely and then continued to do a sermon after that to remind them of the holocaust and that we will not stand for this. What an incredible man he is.
HOSTIN: Definitely an incredible man. And I think, to, to answer your question, Whoopi, you know, what can we do about it, I think Joy’s response goes to the heart of it because you have to identify what the problem is and say it out loud to come up with a solution. And so, we know that the common thread is white supremacy and white nationalism and the other common thread is using these AR-15s or AR type weapons. And so, when you have the President of the United States being asked in March if white nationalism, this rise that we’re seeing, is a huge threat and he comes out and says something like “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems, I guess.” When you have that minimization of what is clearly a significant rise in hate crimes at the hands of that type of person…
GOLDBERG: Right.
HOSTIN: …you’ve got to address that. And you also have to address the fact that what is also in common are these AR-15 assault rifle style weapons.
(CROSSTALK)
GOLDBERG: But I think it’s…
HOSTIN: Both ways.
GOLDBERG: …at this point, that’s two different conversations.
HOSTIN: Yeah.
GOLDBERG: One is a, is a conversation about guns and one is a conversation about terrorism. And the…I don’t mean to…did you have some…Okay. There…
MEGHAN MCCAIN: I have something to say.
GOLDBERG: Yeah. Go ahead.
MCCAIN: But go ahead.
GOLDBERG: Go ahead.
MCCAIN: No, I mean, I mean, days like yesterday and today are, I think, hard and horrific for all Americans and you can’t help but feel scared. I actually have a friend who is a commentator who is Jewish, who travels to temple with security now because that’s the kind of era that we’re living in and it’s just horrific. I will say, you are right, the Southern…Southern Poverty Law Center says reports a 30 percent increase in US hate groups over the past four years, seven percent increase in hate groups in 2018 alone. So, I do think we need to do some reflection culturally about where we’re at and why these sort of hate crimes are rising. I do also want to say that Lori Gilbert Kaye was killed trying to shield Rabbi Goldstein from the shooter. That’s heroism in a way that, you know, we, we should say her name. We should honor her, we should pray for here, her and her family. I think we should take a moment here to do that. But I will say past that, one of the things that I would look to is how these guys are getting radicalized and we can look towards the internet. And by the way, he was on a fringe social network called 8chan…
HOSTIN: 8chan.
MCCAIN: …which is a dark corner of the internet and we all, I think, collectively here on this show, we’re all free speech advocates. We make our living off of free speech. But that doesn’t mean that I think that there should be dark corners of the internet where people can be radicalized to conduct terrorists, you know, horrific terrorist tragedies. So I do think Silicon Valley has to starting answering for this. And, by the way, I am a free speech advocate but that doesn’t mean that I think there should be places where child pornography, people can be radicalized on the internet. So, I would look at whoever is supporting 8chan at this point.
GOLDBERG: Yeah. Go ahead, Joy.
BEHAR: I want to say something about Trump though here. Because I was just, I wrote down maybe the, the line that…like last week, Biden introduced the video where he brought up Charlottesville. We all saw that. It was very, very well done and it reminds us that we’re losing the soul of America, et cetera. The next day, I believe was the next day, Donald Trump defends Charlottesville once again; says that these people were historians, they were more interested in Robert E. Lee than the fact that they’re saying “Jews will not replace us.” They were just a bunch of historians. Right. Why don’t we just lock up Doris Kearns Goodwin then? Okay. Then on Saturday, in the morning, this assault on the synagogue. And then, Saturday afternoon, our hearts are with the victims. So he is…talks out of both sides of his mouth. He’s provocative. He gives dog whistles constantly to these people. And then Kellyanne goes out there and defends him and says no, no, no. And he’s like…
HOSTIN: Yeah.
BEHAR: …no, no, no.
GOLDBERG: Well…
BEHAR: Take responsibility for your actions, Mr. President…
GOLDBERG: One of the…
BEHAR: You are the culprit.
GOLDBERG: …one of the things that is the culprit really is we have…you know, there used to be the…we had a little group in Washington that looked specifically to home grown terror. You know, they’ve disbanded this group.
HOSTIN: At the Justice Department.
GOLDBERG: At the Justice Department. It’s gone and so now, things that they might have caught, things that they might have been watching, no one’s watching them now. You know, no one’s paying attention to the dark corners of the internet and, you know, I’m with you, you know, I’m all for free speech. I’m all for you saying I don’t like what you’re saying blah blah blah, having those conversations. But there comes a time when you have to realize that if someone is saying go out and do this, go out and do harm to people, that’s hate speech. I’m sorry I don’t care what they’re saying.
BEHAR: And it shouldn’t be protected.
GOLDBERG: And it’s not…it should not be protected and I didn’t think it was but apparently it is and I don’t know how that works.
HOSTIN: And again, the tone comes from the top. If it’s not at the Justice Department, that is because the White House doesn’t want it to be at the Justice Department.
GOLDBERG: Well, this is something everybody should be really concerned about because if no one is watching domestic terror, if no one’s watching who’s coming for us…And listen, white people, yellow people, orange people, green people, they’re not, they’re not happy with any of us. Okay? They’re talking about you too when they say they’re coming for… they’re coming, they’re talking about you also. It’s not them and us. It’s all us. So if we don’t start saying, listen, this, this is not acceptable, this is going to go on and on and on. We’ll be right back.
