Joy Behar and ‘The View’ Hosts Criticize Trump’s Inauguration Speech for ‘Godlike Complex’: ‘If He’s Sending All Criminals Away, Where Is He Going?’
“The View” hosts Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Anna Navarro and Alyssa Farah Griffin appeared on the Jan. 21 episode of the ABC daytime talk show to discuss Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration (Whoopi Goldberg is out this week due to a previously planned work commitment). The four women took issue with Trump’s polarizing inauguration speech, in which he said it will now be government policy that there are only two genders (male and female) and declared a “national emergency at the southern border” to return “millions of criminal aliens back to the place where they came from.”
“If he’s sending all the criminals away, where is he going?” Behar asked, acknowledging Trump’s own recent convictions. “And what better way to unify the country than by ripping families apart and punishing anyone who doesn’t fall in line.”
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Hostin told her co-hosts that she “decided to protect my peace and celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day” instead of watching Trump’s inauguration.
“The one thing I did think about was the hypocrisy of having a man be inaugurated to be president on the same day as we commemorate MLK,” Hostin added, “and that same man saying that he was going to get rid of diversity, equity and inclusion. The irony of it because Martin Luther King not only wanted racial equality, he wanted economic equality.”
Haines did watch Trump’s speech and said she “just kind of felt this dark feeling,” adding: “He had this kind of martyr-like, you guys are downtrodden and you can’t save this place but I can and it had this godlike complex without any Jesus qualities.”
“I was watching and thinking it’s time to retire the phrase ‘normalizing Donald Trump,'” Griffin said. “Donald Trump is normalized whether you like it or not. 75 million people voted for him. He is now as much a part of American history as George Bush or Barack Obama and I was shocked by the imagery of — he left four years ago in disgrace, barely anyone showed up when he announced his re-election two years ago and now he came back as a conquering king and had the biggest titans of industry, fashion designers, Democrats and every former president there. I think that it’s a moment to take note of why he won and the reasons that he did.”
Goldberg had previously said that she would not watch the inauguration during its live broadcast, while Hostin had planned a spa day instead. Despite not tuning in, Goldberg did defend Carrie Underwood’s right to perform “America the Beautiful” after the “American Idol” winning received backlash online for participating in Trump’s inauguration ceremony.
“I stand behind her,” Goldberg said of Underwood. “If I believe I have the right to make up my mind to go perform some place, I believe [she has] the same right. I have to support. It doesn’t mean I’m particularly interested. I won’t be watching, but that’s just me.”
“The View” hosts are often outspoken with their disdain for Trump, so much so that Goldberg refuses to say his name live on air. Hostin said in November after Trump defeated Kamala Harris in the presidential election that she was “profoundly disturbed” by the results.
“We know now he will have almost unfettered power,” Hostin said at the time. “I worry not about myself actually. I don’t worry about my station in life. I worry about the working class. I worry about my mother, a retired teacher. I worry about our elderly and their social security and medicare. I worry about my children’s future, especially my daughter who has less rights than I had.”
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