On Thursday’s The View, hosts Sunny Hostin and Joy Behar praised the intelligence community for leaking confidential information to the press, calling them “whistleblowers.” During a segment on the confidential leaks, only host Jedediah Bila argued that these leaks were as problematic as what the story they revealed. Hostin fought back, repeatedly stating, “The leak is not the story!”
Bila began by arguing that it should be of concern to the media that intelligent information was being leaked, and that the delivery was as much a problem as the content of the information:
BILA: Like, I had a problem even reporting on Wikileaks. Because I have a problem with leaks. I’m concerned about-- not because the content isn’t valid and important here, I think this is very significant information. But I'm concerned if you have these -- these people in the intelligence community leaking information at their own discretion about the presidency and it's reflecting a conflict between those two group of peoples that needs to be resolved.
But Sunny Hostin called that “bull,” saying the leak wasn’t important.
SUNNY HOSTIN: But the leak is not the story. That’s bull. The leak is not the story.
After Joy Behar said the leaks were “possibly” a “good plan” to get the president out of office, Bila argued she wouldn’t feel that way if her guy was in office.
BILA: Okay, follow that train of thought. Next time someone else is president, you think they’re competent and now you have a whole bunch of unelected bureaucrats that say, you know what, I don’t like this guy so---
BEHAR: Wait a second
[cross-talk]
BILA: That’s a scary precedent.
BEHAR: Naw
Whoopi then jumped in to say that the intelligence community was only “doing the job” the administration refused to do, by being honest with the American people.
WHOOPI: Let's hold on for a second. The intelligence community knows what they're doing. They know how to do this and I'm not sure that they are leaking. I do think part of what's happening is the transparency that everyone was promised is not being delivered and this may be their way of helping us be aware of what's actually going on since no one from any news outlet except Breitbart or whatever they call it and Fox News seem to be spoken to. And so, I think maybe part of this is -- a plea for us to recognize that they're people who are saying, yeah, there are some issues here and we're not going to sweep it under.
This excited Behar who gushed, “They’re whistleblowers, they’re whistleblowers!”
But Bila shot back, “That’s not their job. Their job isn’t to be whistleblowers.”
BILA: That’s not their job. Their job isn’t to be whistleblowers-- [talked over by Behar and Whoopi]
WHOOPI: Their job is to protect the United States. And in part if the President isn't going to do that, they feel that -- they may feel -- I don't know I'm not in the intelligence community.
Hostin jumped in again to argue that in fact, the intelligence community was “career operatives” so their job was to leak secure information. Again she reiterated that the leak “isn’t the story” and that was what Trump “wants out there.”
HOSTIN: These are career operatives, they’re career operatives and their job is to do that!
BILA: I hear what you’re saying I’m just the concern is what if the leaks were classified information?
HOSTIN: The leak isn’t the story Jed, that’s the story the administration wants out there!
BILA: They’re both the story. The leak is the story and the content is the story.
Hostin continued, comparing outrage over the leak to a criminal being outraged for being caught committing a crime on camera.
SUNNY HOSTIN: I said this yesterday. It's like a thief being angry at the surveillance video. It’s like a thief being like, ‘Oh my goodness! It’s not the crime, it’s the surveillance video.”
The media clearly agrees with the liberal hosts at the View as well. The networks spent 18x more coverage on the White House ‘crisis’ vs. concern over intelligence information being leaked.
