During Wednesday's edition of ABC's The View program, co-host Whoopi Goldberg happily stated that GOP front-runner Donald Trump is “taking heat from all sides for his plan to ban Muslims from entering America.”
“Because we have freedom of speech in this country, he’s allowed to say what he wants to say,” the comedian said regarding the Republican presidential candidate. “However, there are consequences.”
Goldberg continued:
I have a heads-up for Homeland Security because Donald Trump seems to be recruiting, you know, a large group with the views that are against basic American values.
He seems to be doing a very good job for ISIS [the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria], and I think maybe he should be on the watch list because he's traveled out of the country quite a bit.
The program began with a brief video of Trump being interviewed by former View host Barbara Walters, who asked him: “Are you a bigot?”
“Not at all,” Trump replied before adding that he is “probably the least of anybody you've ever met.”
Walters then asked: “Because?”
“Because I'm not,” the Republican candidate responded. “I'm a person that has common sense. I'm a smart person. I know how to run things. I know how to make America great again.”
After the video, fellow co-host Joy Behar stated: “You know, I looked up the word 'bigot,' and there's a lot of definitions about being you know, a segregationist, in being prejudiced, but the one synonym that stood out: “maniac.”
“So 'bigot' equals 'maniac.'” Behar added. “I'm just saying.”
Goldberg then pointed to a comment from another Republican candidate in the 2016 presidential race: Florida senator Marco Rubio, who criticized Trump's proposed plan.
“Some of your friends are Muslim,” she noted. “There's a lot of athletes that are, and you know, we need to be respectful, so Marco said [Trump] was kind of cynical to focus on discrimination against Muslims.”
The co-host then sought to defend people from that group by referring to “all the Muslims that have been yanked off planes because, ooh, they were scary and they looked different.”
“How about the fact that Muslims face discrimination at work?” she continued. “Getting interviews in [conservative Republican] Red States is apparently very difficult “
“The FBI says that Muslim Americans are five times more likely to be victims of hate crimes today,” Goldberg noted, “and hate crimes fell across the board last year except for anti-Muslim hate crimes; they rose.”
“So there's an issue here,” she asserted. “There's something happening.”
Paula Faris then joined the discussion by indicating that members of the Republican Party “find themselves in a conundrum.”
“There is a poll that just came out, a USA Today poll,” Paris said, “and granted, it happened before these latest comments, but it said that nearly 70 percent of his supporters would follow him if he decided to run as an Independent.”
That led her to “reach out to somebody from the RNC [Republican National Committee], a spokesperson who said: 'Listen, he's a smart businessman. He knows that this doesn't make any business, if he would run in a third party, because that would basically be handing the election to Hillary Clinton.'”
Behar interjected: “That would cost him too much money.” She then noted:
His rhetoric is not just free speech to me. A lot of it is hate speech. I believe that people have in them good and bad. As a religious person, I think you would agree with me. And he brings out what’s dormant, the bad in people.
Whereas Pope Francis is bringing out the good in people now, and we all applaud that and love him, this man -- I’m sorry, Donald -- at one point, I said that you were kind of funny. You’re not funny anymore.
“You’re not entertaining,” she continued. “In the beginning, he was like a clown, and you didn’t take him seriously. His numbers kept going up. You said he’s not going to get it. He’s going to be gone soon. Well, he’s not gone, and that’s why it’s not funny anymore.”
Also bashing Trump was another co-host, Christina Pearman -- also known as Raven-Symoné -- who said: ”I don’t know how he can go through Mexicans, Asians, disabled Americans and say he’s not a bigot. Also, we’re finally chomping down and saying he shouldn’t run for president anymore.”
“You offended everybody in the country," she said, "and as soon as you go outside the country, they’re like 'We need to stop now.' People were way offended before; he should have been kicked out then.”
Of course, it comes as no surprise that a panel of five liberal women wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to bash a well-known GOP presidential candidate. We can only wonder how they'd react if “the Donald” actually won the White House next year.
