Despite the lack of Meghan McCain on Thursday’s broadcast of The View, things still devolved into a tense and heated back-and-forth when the table discussed the right-wing outrage over impeachment witness Pamela Karlan’s wordplay pun involving Barron Trump’s name.
During Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing, Karlan—a Stanford Law professor—attempted to make a point about the Constitution, noting that President Donald Trump is not a monarch.
“So while the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron,” Karlan said. After First Lady Melania Trump and other conservatives lashed out at the legal expert, claiming she attacked a minor, Karlan offered an apology.
ADVERTISEMENT
Discussing the backlash to Karlan’s play on words, hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar pointed out that the professor was merely making an analogy using Barron’s name and was not being “disrespectful or nasty” towards a young child. This immediately prompted conservative co-host Abby Huntsman to fire back.
“I might be the only one here that sees this as pretty sick and a total low blow and stupid,” Huntsman huffed, causing guest host Bari Weiss to ask what was so “sick” about it.
“Because I think talking about political kids unless they’re on the front lines, they’re off-limits,” the daughter of former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman said. “I’m the only one at the table that has been a political child.”
After claiming that Democrats are constantly giving Republicans “ammunition” with moments like this, Huntsman then took issue with Behar arguing that Trumpworld has no right to act offended over the pun due to Trump’s family separation policy at the border.
“The ‘kids in cages’ argument, it’s brought about every other day on this show and elsewhere because I feel like that’s always the defense you go to when you can’t defend on the Democratic side,” Huntsman stated.
Co-host Sunny Hostin, meanwhile, added to the growing chaos on The View set by saying she actually agreed with Huntsman, insisting that it was “ill-advised and quite frankly just dumb” for Karlan to make a “joke” during the hearing.
“It wasn’t a joke, Sunny!” Behar shot back.
Moments later, Behar wondered why Huntsman thought it was “wrong” to bring up the plight of migrant children a lot, asking her what her objection is to it.
“My issue with it, is it’s what we teach our kids not to do,” Huntsman replied. “ I got in trouble for saying this, but Joy said it worse. So you should be in trouble. It doesn’t really equate. When they are hitting on Barron, I’m not sure what ‘kids in cages’ that has to do with that.”
“It shows the hypocrisy,” Behar retorted.
“What did Barron do?” Huntsman declared, again alleging he was the victim of an attack.
“It had nothing to do with Barron,” Goldberg interjected. “Only his name. It’s just his name.”
Goldberg then ended the contentious segment by claiming there was “no comparison” between a bad pun and the U.S. treatment of migrant children.
“It is apples and oranges because a bad pun out of the mouth of somebody you can say, don’t do the pun again,” the Oscar-winner concluded. “Hard to do that with the kid in the cage.”
