Monday, The View hosts complained that conservatives calling last week's Time magazine cover, “fake news,” were missing the point. “It’s a symbol!” they decried. The cover, depicted the infamous photo of an immigrant child in tears, supposedly separated from her mother, an image that was used all over by the media to the deride Trump's cruelty. There was no question as to what message Time was trying to portray, depicting that child crying at Trump's feet on their cover with the words, “Welcome to America.” After news broke later that the girl was not actually separated from her mother, Time magazine and other media outlets still went out defending their use of the image, and the View continue the spin Monday.
After explaining that Time was “under fire” for their cover, Whoopi defended the outlet’s propaganda.
“It's a symbol. It's a symbol for what's happening,” she gushed, comparing it to an internet “meme.”
“This didn't bother me because I understood -- I felt I understood it,” she gushed, blasting critics of the cover for not understanding it, in a way that sounds like she didn’t understand it:
“But some people are saying, ‘oh, it's fake news.’ No, he wasn't there, and the little girl wasn't in the red box either and, you know, it's a composite. It's a composite, and well you know and that's what sometimes people do to make the imagery,” Whoopi stated.
Joy Behar gushed that the girl was actually being traumatized so the cover wasn’t too far from the truth.
“They were, in fact, traumatizing the child at the border though. Because they were frisking the mother or something. This kid is a little tiny kid and she was frightened by these gigantic people around her which is what Trump looks like,” she said, trying to validate the false image. Behar even praised the outlet for not apologizing for its mistake. “It made its point, and they’re standing by it for good reason, as you say, it's symbolic,” she agreed with Whoopi.
Both Sara Haines and Behar recalled the Trump Administration encouraging people to not take everything put out by Trump literally, while Haines echoed the other hosts justifying the fake image as “symbolism:”
SARA HAINES: It's what a lot of people said around the election time about taking things seriously or literally. That's how I see this. I never saw it as literal. I saw it as a serious problem and this was symbolic. If you want to take it literally, I can see why both sides will run to their own side and say this is wrong.
BEHAR: It was his side that put out that statement.
HAINES: I know. That wasn't an accidental wording.
BEHAR: Don’t spit up in the air, It comes back in your face, my mother said. [ Laughter ]
Host Sunny Hostin took another tactic to defend the magazine’s use of an image to sell a fake narrative, arguing it wasn’t the media’s fault, because journalists allegedly hadn’t been allowed to take pictures at the border:
“ I think one of the reasons why we don't have specific photos of what's going on with the migrant children at the border is because photographers and journalists have been denied access, and so, you know, this is a symbol in large part, because we don't see pictures of the children,” she claimed. Hostin derided critics calling this cover “fake” because just because this one wasn’t true, doesn’t mean children weren’t being separated from their parents:
HOSTIN: I think, you know, trying to change the narrative somehow this is fake news. Well, is it fake that 2,000 plus children have been separated from their families? That is not fake. That is a reality, and I think the administration somehow is trying to change the narrative, but we need to be vigilant that this happened here in our country.
Finally conservative host Meghan McCain jumped in to correct what many of her fellow hosts were arguing. “It's not that I don't think it didn't happen, but it does play into the fake news narrative because this child wasn't actually detained,” she made the obvious point. McCain went on to blast the liberal magazine for being obsessed with nasty Trump covers:
MCCAIN: I will say that Time magazine has done 21 Trump covers since he was, had announced he was running for president, and I would like -- I feel like we talk about Time magazine Trump covers every day. I would like them to do a cover on why he is still popular, why he got elected, trying to understand the Trump voter because right now, remember one of his face melting? We know, we know, he is an extremely polarizing president, and I think when you have a symbol that's not exactly what happened, it plays into the fake news narrative which is ultimately just a siren song for the other side.
The conversation quickly changed from the magazine cover to Trump’s border policy. Behar blasted the administration as “kidnappers,” whining that the president’s voters would continue to support him:
JOY BEHAR: I have a couple of questions. Why isn't the administration called to account the kidnapping children number one? Number two, how is this going to play in November? Are the people that continue to follow Trump going to turn their backs on these children when you know it won't be solved by November?
Whoopi doubted Trump voters would respond negatively to his reaction to the border situation. “I believe a lot of folks feel that this is -- this is him showing his strength,” she noted, citing the border wall campaign promise. But Behar complained about his supporters’ lack of morality.
“I don't see how anybody can see this as the right thing. These are babies, kids. Some of them are preverbal and they don't have their mommies with them, their daddies. It's outrageous really. People should be so outraged by this,” she said in disgust.
Hostin wondered why immigrant children were not given matching arm bands to their parents, a standard hospitals do with parents of newborns. Behar shot back, “Because they’re incompetent!” as the audience clapped.
