Whoopi Goldberg had some harsh words for Pete Hegseth on The View Wednesday, prompting producers to cut her mic.
“I just really wanted to wait and see how he came at the four star generals, that are women, ‘cause that’s one of those [eff around and find out moments],” Goldberg said of Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, leaving viewers to read her lips for that last bit of audio.
The hosts opened the show with a discussion of Hegseth’s mother Penelope Hegseth’s appearance on Fox News, where she attempted to walk back a private email she’d sent him in 2018. In the original email, she writes, “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats and sleeps around,” and “you are that man and have been for years. And as your mother it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”
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“It’s time for someone (I wish it was a strong man) to stand up to your abusive behavior and call it out, especially against women,” the email also read, according to the New York Times. Hegseth’s mom then took back her words on Fox, saying, “I am a passionate person like Pete, and sometimes emotional words come out. I don’t believe any of that is true.” She added that she’d written the email “in haste.”
The hosts of The View gave their perspective on the email’s “vitriol,” as Sunny Hostin put it. “In the most haste of any moment in my mom’s life, as enraged as I’ve probably made her, she could never call into question so many things in one letter including my integrity, my ability, and how I treat people,” Sara Haines said. “The optics of putting him in charge of this department with all that lies beneath that—pick someone else, there are a gazillion fish in the sea.”
“If your own mother turns on you, there’s something going on there,” Joy Behar added.
“That’s what I had the most difficulty with,” Hostin replied. “But what bothers me the most is the position he’s up for,” she explained, sharing a stat that women make up 20 percent of the Department of Defense—and many of whom have earned combat badges since the gender barrier to combat was lifted in 2016. Just last month, Hegseth expressed his view that the Pentagon “should not have women in combat roles” since “men in those positions are more capable.”
That’s why Goldberg said she wishes she could see Hegseth face some of the country’s decorated female combat vets. “You’re gonna tell people they’re not qualified to fight for their nation? That doesn’t make any sense. We need an army that gets why we need to be protected and does the job,” she said. “That does not seem to be a good way to keep people in a volunteer army.”
