It was open season on conservatives at The View Wednesday, as the hosts began the show attacking Republican Senators and Fox News host Tucker Carlson before moving on to attack Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R).
After expressing outrage at Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) suggesting "provocateurs" and "fake Trump protesters” were responsible for the January 6 riot, they moved on to target Carlson for saying tthere was no evidence that white supremacists were responsible for the riot.
Sunny Hostin admitted she was “disgusted” at Carlson for “daring” to say this, citing people carrying Confederate flags into the Capitol and one Capitol police officer telling ABC News he was called the n-word dozens of times that day as her evidence. Joy Behar, instead, threatened Carlson in her response: “Tucker Carlson needs to be, you know, tied up and put in the corner somewhere so we never hear from him again,” she said in frustration.
A few minutes later, Behar realized she went too far and asked if she could make a “correction”:
I don't mean to imply that anything bad should happen -- I do not mean to imply that anything harmful should happen to Tucker Carlson. I just want him to stop saying stupid things. That's all. So let me just get that straight. Because I don’t like to be perceived as someone who’s violent in any way. I’m not.
After this segment the hosts took aim at DeSantis being a 2024 GOP hopeful. Hostin cited a series of debunked and unfactual smears to complain about the Republican (click “expand”):
Well, I'm just surprised that DeSantis, the Governor of Florida is doing so well in the polling because if you really look at the numbers, Florida has reported 1.88 million COVID-19 infections and over 30,000 deaths due to the coronavirus. Some of the worst numbers actually in the nation. DeSantis opened up Florida in April of 2020, really at the height of the coronavirus infection, and I'm just surprised that he is doing so well. He has hid numbers. We don't really know that any of his numbers are accurate.
He apparently -- a data scientist Rebekah Jones was facing arrest in January of 2021 because she refused to skew the data in his favor, and right now we know that he is actually, you know, playing politics with the vaccine, and he's actually giving vaccines to wealthy people as opposed to giving vaccines to -- in poorer zip codes, and so if that is the best that the Republicans have to offer, my God. I mean, that really is a scary thing. I'm -- I guess I shouldn't be shocked, but I really am. I really am.
Jones wasn’t facing arrest last month for refusing to skew data (another debunked lie); the discredited former employee was charged with breaking into Florida’s Department of Health website from her Maryland home last November. As for the other false claims by Hostin, DeSantis has consistently prioritized the most vulnerable citizens in his state--the elderly--in getting the vaccine and that angers the left-wing media.
Hostin even finished this rant with the comically bad falsehood that “I would like to see some of the energy directed at Cuomo directed at DeSantis,” implying that the media has been too hard on Cuomo compared to DeSantis. Maybe Hostin needs to take a trip back down memory lane. The media spent nearly a year making a hero out of Cuomo; while DeSantis has been trashed by the media from the beginning, despite his state doing better than New York overall.
When it was her turn to speak, Meghan McCain disagreed, saying that recent polls show DeSantis being more popular than Trump, and she argued, he's done a very good job rolling out the vaccine in his state, numbers wise. She also brought up New Yorkers flocking to Florida as a sign that people appreciated his leadership more than Cuomo's. But Whoopi asserted another dubious smear in response:
Well, I wouldn't expect you to vote for a Democrat, but I would expect that you know the difference between right and wrong. You are a smart person, and you know that when somebody says I'm going to give this vaccine to my friends instead of saying, you know, I want to make sure that everybody in my state gets it, maybe that's -- that's not the best thing...
After McCain asked her if this actually happened, Whoopi said "I don't know" that's just what "she's read" (or saw on The Daily Show), before going to commercial.
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Read the partial transcripts below:
The View
2/24/2021
SUNNY HOSTIN: I mean, you have Tucker Carlson on television last night saying that there was no evidence of white supremacists at the riot. Well, the evidence was clear at the riot, at the insurrection. I mean, you had people carrying confederate flags. You had Harry Dunn, a capitol police officer, a black Capitol Police officer saying he was called racial slurs at that insurrection. I was disgusted by what Tucker Carlson said. How dare he say there was no evidence of white supremacy there? There was evidence everywhere!
(....)
JOY BEHAR: Tucker Carlson needs to be, you know, tied up and put in the corner somewhere so we never hear from him again.
(....)
BEHAR: Can I correct something? Can I just say one thing? I don't mean to imply that anything bad should happen -- I do not mean to imply that anything harmful should happen to Tucker Carlson. I just want him to stop saying stupid things. That's all. So let me just get that straight. Because I don’t like to be perceived as someone who’s violent in any way. I’m not.
(....)
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Some Republican pollsters say Florida governor Ron DeSantis could be in the running because he's polling far ahead of the other Florida Republicans like Marco Rubio. Like, you know -- what is the point of all of this? This is for us to talk about you-know-who when you-know-who is facing a whole lot of other jail time possibly in the future….
(....)
SUNNY HOSTIN: Well, I'm just surprised that DeSantis, the Governor of Florida is doing so well in the polling because if you really look at the numbers, Florida has reported 1.88 million COVID-19 infections and over 30,000 deaths due to the coronavirus. Some of the worst numbers actually in the nation. DeSantis opened up Florida in April of 2020, really at the height of the coronavirus infection, and I'm just surprised that he is doing so well. He has hid numbers. We don't really know that any of his numbers are accurate. He apparently -- a data scientist Rebekah Jones was facing arrest in January of 2021 because she refused to skew the data in his favor, and right now we know that he is actually, you know, playing politics with the vaccine, and he's actually giving vaccines to wealthy people as opposed to giving vaccines to -- in poorer zip codes, and so if that is the best that the Republicans have to offer, my God. I mean, that really is a scary thing. I'm -- I guess I shouldn't be shocked, but I really am. I really am.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Right.
HOSTIN:I would like to see some of the energy directed at Cuomo directed at DeSantis!
(....)
MEGHAN MCCAIN: The poll numbers that were cited recently by Politico, he's arguably more popular than Trump in Florida, and depending on which perspective you have done, he has done, in my opinion, actually a very good job in Florida. He has ended up vaccinated 13% of all Floridians, at least have 1 vaccination compared to 14% of Californians. I think if you compare governors, and I think that governors tend to be the best presidential candidates, look at Gavin Newsom who is on the heels of being completely recalled in his state. California is losing so many people in its state that they're losing a congressional seat for the first time in California history, and in Florida, you have massive amounts of New Yorkers going to Florida, going to Palm Beach and Miami and different places because they like the way the state's being run… The fact that I watch Tucker Carlson's show is probably just blaspheming enough in the house of politics that I can’t do anything in any way, and by the way there's a lot of Republicans in the country that were really opening to working with the other side, and all I feel is anger and hate, and arguably more vitriol than happened during the Trump years simply because you're associated for being a Republican. So it's open season for someone like Ron DeSantis because you just can’t isolate non-Trump Republicans going forward because I'm not going to be voting for a Democrat.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Well, I wouldn't expect you to vote for a Democrat, but I would expect that you know the difference between right and wrong. You are a smart person, and you know that when somebody says I'm going to give this vaccine to my friends instead of saying, you know, I want to make sure that everybody in my state gets it, maybe that's -- that's not the best thing you want to hear, and it would be nice if somebody on the Republican side --
MCCAIN: Did he say he only wanted to give vaccines to his friends?
WHOOPI: I don't know. That's what I read, that he was giving it to his friends and people who gave him money for his -- for his run. My point is however---well I messed it up because I was supposed to do Black History Month. [cuts to commercial]
