A day after Rosie O’Donnell proclaimed that the CIA engaged in “horrific” and “illegal” “torture,” on Thursday morning the cast of ABC’s The View decided to revisit the controversial Democratic Senate report on the CIA’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists.
Predictably, Rosie doubled-down on her claim that America “tortured” people but conservative co-host Nicolle Wallace eagerly slapped her down. The ABC host insisted that she has “never been more proud to defend the people who walk the line for this country and this city and the city in which I worked, the city where my mom and dad lived.”
The heated back-and-forth between the two began with O’Donnell insisting that U.S. contractors “devised the torture techniques. Two men who had no real knowledge in it, they were paid over $80 million...To create the kinds of torture like putting a feeding tube up the rectum with pureed food in it and the cover story is it was nutritional feeding. It is physically impossible to rectally feed people.”
Rather than accept O’Donnell’s attack on the CIA, Wallace went into great lengths to detail the fear she felt working in the White House on 9/11 and how she receives countless phone calls from individuals thanking her for defending our country.
Unsurprisingly, Rosie felt the need to interrupt her co-host and pointed out how “I’ve never had so many people call me to say thank you for saying the other point.” Rather than allow Rosie to talk over her, Wallace shot her down and proclaimed “let me just finish I didn’t interrupt” before she fully rebutted O’Donnell:
So both sides of the debate I think are being adequately represented here. But to the men and women who were simply doing their jobs, and for them this was traumatic. And I don't think anyone is defending brutal tactics. That's why they don't happen anymore. But I have never been more proud to defend the people who walk the line for this country and this city and the city in which I worked, the city where my mom and dad lived–
The heated conversation concluded with Rosie taking one last swipe at Wallace:
Well, I'm sorry you feel the ends justifies the means. But I don’t think Machiavellian techniques is really the foundation of democracy in America.
See relevant transcript below.
ABC’s The View
December 11, 2014
ROSIE O’DONNELL: Well, I think that we will know because there are hundreds of photos that are going to be released on Friday, 2,000 of them, so we have seen some photos through Rory Kennedy's amazing work at the Ghosts of Abu Gharib documentary. We have seen the photos. We’ve also seen Zero Dark 30. They didn't make stuff up out of their head.
The one man who actually blew the whistle on the torture techniques is in prison. But none of the men who did the torture orchestration who set it up or who implemented the torture are in prison but the one guy who told, he is in prison for 30 months. He is the father of five and he said I will not participate in waterboarding, in the drowning of a human being, because this is un-American and against the constitution and I say bravo to him.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Okay
GOLDBERG: His name is John [sic.]
OLIVIA MUNN: The question is, not that it’s proven that it's true, does he get to get out of jail?
O’DONNELL: I would hope so and I would hope that the American public would try to protest in a way, perhaps over the internet in order to make that possible.
GOLDBERG: Did they say that no one was ever waterboarded. Did they deny doing it?
ROSIE PEREZ: No, they did not deny.
GOLDBERG: Okay.
PEREZ: and they were counseled by this therapist that they paid $81 million.
O’DONNELL: Yes.
PEREZ: Yes.
O’DONNELL: Who devised the torture techniques? Two men who had no real knowledge in it, they were paid over $80 million.
PEREZ: Taxpayer dollars.
O’DONNELL: To create the kinds of torture like putting a feeding tube up the rectum with pureed food in it and the cover story is it was nutritional feeding. It is physically impossible to rectally feed people.
PEREZ: That’s why I think the truth isn't going to come out because I think they’re going to rename things.
NICOLLE WALLACE: The problem with all this is its really emotional, right?
PEREZ: Yes.
WALLACE: Very emotional stuff.
O’DONNELL: For you too, right?
WALLACE: And I think–of course. I mean listen, reliving the things that the government had to do. You know, after 9/11 I worked in the White House. I was in the building, I was evacuated and I remember the guards saying to me take off your shoes. I said what? They said you can run faster if you take those shoes off. And you know what kind of shoes I wear, they’re not that high. So I took off my shoes and I ran up Connecticut Avenue and I remember calling my dad and I said they think the fourth plane is coming for us, I love you. And my dad tells the story in a much more emotional way than I remember it.
I was sort of, it was like covering my bases, logistics. I called mom and dad. So I went running up Connecticut Avenue and in the months and days after 9/11 the debate in this country and the debate in the White House where I worked wasn't whether or not we would get hit, it was which city was next. So my family’s from the San Francisco Bay area and I have some friends here from there now. I told my mom and dad stop driving over the bridge, you’ve got family in the Bay area. Stay off those bridges.
O’DONNELL: You were very afraid after 9/11. All of us were.
WALLACE: The whole country was.
O’DONNELL: All of us.
WALLACE: And I think that the way this divides the country today is people either feel that the actions that the government took, and listen, the last three days I’ve been asked about this a lot in this job and in my other job at MSNBC and I have never had more people call me and thank me for defending the men and women of the CIA who were simply doing their jobs.
O’DONNELL: And I’ve never had so many people call me to say thank you for saying the other point.
WALLACE: Let me just finish I didn’t interrupt.
O’DONNELL: So I just want to put that out there.
WALLACE: So both sides of the debate I think are being adequately represented here. But to the men and women who were simply doing their jobs, and for them this was traumatic. And I don't think anyone is defending brutal tactics. That's why they don't happen anymore. But I have never been more proud to defend the people who walk the line for this country and this city and the city in which I worked, the city where my mom and dad lived--.
O’DONNELL: Well, I'm sorry you feel the ends justifies the means. But I don’t think Machiavellian techniques is really the foundation of democracy in America.
