Whoopi Forced to Tell People They Shouldn’t ‘Hurt’ Trump Physically

Whoopi Goldberg had to clarify to The View audience on Thursday morning that she did not intend to imply she wanted Donald Trump to be physically attacked—just as her employer ABC was forced to settle a defamation lawsuit with the president-elect to the tune of more than $15 million.

During a discussion about her and Joy Behar’s theory that JD Vance and Elon Musk were plotting to take over the presidency from Trump, Goldberg said that Trump should “watch out.”

The segment began with Goldberg’s comment that Musk “believes he’s president. I’ve called him vice president, I’ve called him president, ‘cause I don’t know what [Vance] is doing. I hardly ever see—I don’t remember the last time we even talked about JD.”

That’s when Behar chimed in to suggest that Vance was already making plans for what to do after he and Musk “get rid of Trump.”

Goldberg then issued a warning to the president-elect. Refusing to use his name per usual, she said, “You-know-who, stay away from the stairways. People put the leg out to trip you goin’ down the stairs. Watch out.”

The discussion about Musk continued through the segment and into the break, when Goldberg was seemingly asked by producers to clarify that she hadn’t been advocating for Trump to be “hurt.”

“I need to clean something up,” Goldberg said when the show returned after the commercial, “because my cat lays in wait for me on my stairs all the time. That’s what I was referring to—I was thinking of that. I wasn’t trying to indicate that they were actually standing there with their legs out hoping he would trip.”

Co-host Sunny Hostin chimed in to help Goldberg explain, “Nobody wants anything done to the president.”

Exasperated, Goldberg exclaimed, “It was light-hearted and it’s the holidays, c’mon! My goodness.”

“You did not mean that anybody should hurt the president,” Hostin then clarified again, carefully.

“No,” Goldberg said. “The thing about this show, there’s no way not to step in poo. There’s no way to do it. There’s no way not to do it. I got a cat who does it to me everyday and that’s what sparked it.”

After what happened with their ABC colleague George Stephanopoulos, it seems The View can’t be too careful about disparaging Trump.