From guest stars and temporary hosts making a scene to full-time hosts resorting to insults,
The View has had quite a few dramatic moments over its history.
Here are the arguments on The View that went way too far.
When TV personality Jeanine Pirro appeared on The View to discuss her new book in 2018,
things went downhill really fast.
Some of the hosts lashed out at Pirro when she defended former U.S. President Donald
Trump's record, and it got worse when she said that outspoken co-host and moderator
Whoopi Goldberg had, quote, "Trump derangement syndrome.”
To an unfazed Pirro, Goldberg said of Trump,
"I have never, ever seen anything like this; I've never seen anybody whip up such hate.”
With the audience fully engaged in the spat, Goldberg gave her two cents, before Pirro
fired back by defending Trump's rhetoric.
But things just kept getting worse, with the two women entering a full-fledged screaming match:
“You know what’s horrible?”
“What’s horrible is we [crosstalk] sanctuary cities –“
“When the president of the United States whips up people to beat the hell out of people.”
“No.”
“Say goodbye.
Goodbye!”
On that dramatic note, the show came to a conclusion.
You just know that when the tragic day of 9/11 comes up, things have the ability to go awry.
First and foremost, it should be said that, when talking about one of the darkest days
in modern US history, sensitivity and respect are crucial.
But, on one episode of The View, co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar got up and left
the stage on-air after guest Bill O'Reilly made some questionable statements about the
terrorist attacks of that day.
In 2010, O'Reilly brought up what was then a politically charged topic of a mosque being
built near Ground Zero in New York City.
The conversation started off pretty badly:
“Hold it, listen to me, because you’ll learn.”
By the time the Fox News host and Goldberg got into it, things just got worse:
“Why is it inappropriate?”
“Because Muslims killed us on 9/11.”
“No, oh my God.
That is such bulls---.”
The dispute eventually came to a head:
“I don’t want to sit here.
I don’t want to sit here.”
“Go.”
Both Behar and Goldberg left the stage, in what was, by far, one of the most-explosive
moments on the show.
When conversations encroach into the world of politics, things are bound to get ugly.
And that's exactly what happened when The View hosts started talking about Amy Coney Barrett,
the then-likely replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court.
At the time of this argument, Barrett had yet to be confirmed to the bench, so it was
open season for the show’s co-hosts to wrangle over the issue.
Co-host Meghan McCain went into a full-fledged rant, accusing the Democrats of being pro-abortion
and defending Judge Brett Kavanaugh as she did so:
“But at the same time, you have people on the left that are screaming that they’re
gonna pack the courts and create violence, and you’re gonna see chaos that we’ve never seen.”
Co-host Sara Haines piped in, setting off an epic argument:
“Judge Amy Coney Barrett said something that should scare all of us: ‘A legal career
is but a means to an end –
“I’d be very careful slandering her, Sara, before she’s even been put in a court.”
“I’m not.”
It got so heated that, at one point, viewers couldn’t even tell who was saying what.
As the arguers kept getting riled up, Whoopi Goldberg actually played the diplomat and
cooled things down:
“Meghan, please just give me…”
[hands clapping]
“Ok, everybody stop.
We’re going… we’ll be back.”
When you hear the name Ann Coulter, you just know controversy is going to erupt, and that's
exactly what happened when the political pundit appeared on The View.
Coulter came to discuss her new book, but the conversation quickly took a turn when
she got into it with co-host Raven Symoné.
Things were already uncomfortable when Coulter and Symoné got riled up - Coulter had called
herself the descendant of, quote, "settlers" rather than immigrants and claimed she was,
by and large, native to America.
Symoné hunkered down and replied to Coulter,
"My mom taught me when I was younger, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.
And why do you think it's important to mudsling?"
Coulter quickly took offense and went on the defensive, saying she was there to talk about
policy, not identity politics.
"Well, I'm at least talking about policy.
You have a position on what people's names should be."
Coulter was referencing one of Symoné's previous controversial moments on the show, but this
exchange was beyond uncomfortable.
Here we go again with politics, which again made tempers flare on The View when the damning
Mueller Report was released.
With Republican officials jumping to former U.S. President Donald Trump's defense, including
his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, the women of The View, of course, weighed in.
And there were some seriously heated takes shared during this conversation.
The situation went from bad to worse when co-host Meghan McCain said that she blamed
the political left as much as the right for the political mess that the country was in
after the report became public.
"To say that all Republicans are bad, and all Republicans have to hold their feet to
the fire... there are some decisions Trump has made that aren't the end of the world, that Republicans support.”
When co-host Sunny Hostin tried to jump in and share her thoughts on the matter, McCain
just plowed over her and yelled, "Let me finish!"
The two women, from then on, just started arguing over each other, with no tangible
point really made at all.
Thankfully, Goldberg stepped in and ended the screaming match, leaning toward producers
and indicating the need to go to commercial.
Abortion is always a touchy topic, but the women of The View didn’t hold back their
opinions on the matter, leading to a rather intense argument.
It happened when Rosie O'Donnell was on the show, and she argued tooth and nail with co-host
Elisabeth Hasselbeck about the issue of partial-birth abortions, then circulating around the Supreme Court.
O'Donnell argued that partial birth abortions happened when the baby in question was suffering
or when the mother was at risk.
Hasselbeck countered by saying there was too much of a gray area around the issue.
She thought some mothers would claim that having a baby would cause, quote, "stress,"
thereby allowing them to get a partial-birth abortion.
As a full-on screaming match began between O'Donnell and Hasselbeck, co-host Barbara
Walters tried to chime in but couldn’t be heard over the two sparring women.
This wasn't the first time that these two hosts squared off, nor would it be the last.
Get ready for the main event: this fight between O'Donnell and Hasselbeck has gone down in
history as one of the most insane and out-of-line arguments in the show's history, and that's
saying a lot.
It all started when co-host Joy Behar gave her less-than-praising thoughts on former
U.S. President George W. Bush and the war in Iraq.
This prompted Hasselbeck, who would later co-host a morning talk show on Fox News, to
say, much to O’Donnell’s dismay,
"They stick by him for not demanding a pullout date for our troops, which is essentially
saying to our enemies we don't have any team out there."
The outspoken O’Donnell was quick to jump in with a different view, setting off the
argument in full:
"You just said our enemies in Iraq.
Did Iraq attack us?"
“No, I’m saying al Qaeda – who is in Iraq.”
“Did Iraq attack us, Elizabeth?”
“Iraq did not attack us, Rosie.”
Hasselbeck then tried to walk back her claim, but it was too late.
Both she and O’Donnell started speaking over each other, and things got so heated
that instead of going to commercial, the producers split the screen, putting O'Donnell on one
side and Hasselbeck on the other.
They’re your thoughts.
Defend your own insinuations!”
”I defend my thoughts.”
“Defend your own thoughts!”
All in all, it looked more like an angry political debate than a talk show.
The View has made quite a name for itself as a show with hardly any limitations - every
topic of conversation is on the table.
So, when the issue of race came up, co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O'Donnell got into it.
Probably wasn’t the best idea for O’Donnell to try to sound tougher on racism than her
African-American co-host was.
But, that’s kinda what happened.
When talking about systemic racism, Goldberg said,
"I've been black for 60 years.
For me, stupidity - there are dumb folks who just say dumb stuff because they're not looking
or paying attention to the person they're talking to."
Goldberg wasn’t willing to agree with the, quote, “blanket statement” that the US
is racist, as O’Donnell apparently wanted her to.
So, Rosie started to rage.
She began loudly sharing her thoughts that politicians operate in a fundamentally racist
system, and that's where things just went downhill.
Whoopi replied,
"Listen, you are a white lady telling me what is racist to you."
O’Donnell refused to back down, lobbing her own broadside that riled Goldberg up even more:
"You don't have to be black to know what racism is."
"Yes, you do!"
"No, you don't!"
"Yes, you do!"
For a time, Jon and Kate Gosselin were reality-TV royalty, but when their marriage imploded,
Kate didn't hold back.
She came to The View as a guest host, and, unfortunately for her, she didn't receive
a ton of love from co-host Whoopi Goldberg.
When discussing an incident in which she went to her house on Jon's custody day to see her
kids, concerned over their babysitter who might have been romantically involved with
Jon at the time, the stage was set for a blowup.
Goldberg started interrogating her, learning that Kate had called the police because Jon
wouldn't let her in.
It looked like Goldberg was on Jon's side:
"You have your specific time and their specific time, and you're not supposed to walk on...
And I'm sorry that's the law.
That's the law."
It was an awkward moment – and one that went a bit too far.
The issue of abortion has caused more than one high-profile spat on The View.
This time, it was late-term abortion, a hot topic as the presidential-campaign cycle got
underway in 2019.
Predictably, it landed on the table of the famed talk show, bringing co-hosts Meghan
McCain and Sunny Hostin into an old-fashioned yelling match.
Safe to say things went way too far - sparked by Meghan McCain's criticism of late-term abortions.
Hostin, who is pro-life herself, pushed back at McCain, and tried to counter some of her
misleading claims.
But McCain didn't even let Hostin get a word in, as she by-and-large steamrolled over everything
her co-host tried to say.
After the show went to commercial break, co-host Joy Behar carved out the space for Hostin
to present her opinion, but it was McCain who had the last controversial word.
In one notorious episode, the co-hosts were discussing the #ChallengeAccepted trend, where
women were posting black-and-white photos of themselves on social media in a show of solidarity.
Meghan McCain jumped in with some things to say about how conservative women feel about
the women's-rights movement:
"...we are never invited into circles, traditionally.
In the Women's March, we were literally not invited to join and told to stay home if you're pro-life."
Goldberg butted in when McCain said that the founders of the Women's March had anti-Semitic ties,
refuting her claim and saying that just one of the founders had a problematic history.
But McCain pressed ahead, igniting more controversy:
“Well, you can watch the tape of me interviewing them on the show and make your own decision.”
“Yeah, I was there.”
“You were not.”
“I was there.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“I was there.
I was there.
Yes, I was.”
Thus, a war of words began between the co-hosts that was, honestly, totally awkward and completely unnecessary.
By consistently presenting multiple perspectives on topical issues, The View's discussions
have been mostly engaging and entertaining, with the hosts and guests generally respectful of each other.
But one conversation went beyond a heated argument into an exchange of personal insults,
when Meghan McCain got into it with Joy Behar.
After talking about Donald Trump's base of supporters, Behar pushed McCain to clarify
what she meant when she said that Trump supporters hated, quote, “the same things Trump hates."
And that was where things went wrong, with McCain getting defensive:
"I really come here every day open-minded just trying to explain it, and it's not a
fun job for me every day."
The conversation only escalated from there, and McCain ended up calling herself the, quote,
"sacrificial Republican" on the show.
Behar groaned in response, and then McCain gave the show a less-than-great look by making
her reply personal:
"Oh, don't feel bad for me, b----.
I'm paid to do this, okay."
The audience audibly reacted to that one, indicating this verbal slugfest had just gotten
too vicious.
As would be expected, Donald Trump and The View make for a pretty toxic combination,
but, nevertheless, when Trump was a guest star on the show back in 2011, he chose, unsurprisingly,
to discuss then-President Barack Obama's birth certificate.
First and foremost, when asked if he was a "birther," Trump somewhat evaded the question,
saying he was, quote, "a really good student at the best school.”
As Trump continued questioning Obama's citizenship, co-host Whoopi Goldberg looked visibly uncomfortable,
before inquiring if political figures such as George Bush would be asked the same questions
that Trump was asking of Obama.
When Trump flat out said that if Obama did not show his birth certificate, it was because
he had something to hide, Goldberg took issue:
"I love you."
“I love you too.
I think that’s the biggest pile of dog mess I’ve heard in ages.”
As she got even more agitated by Trump's remarks, the outspoken co-host went on to say,
"I've never heard any white president asked to show their birth certificate."
The altercation is almost too cringeworthy to watch.
Screaming, political controversy, personal insults – The View has had all of them on air.
It’s even had a cry-inducing verbal exchange, rounding out our list of hyper-dramatic moments on the show.
This spat featured co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck in a conversation about the controversial "n" word.
The argument started when Hasselbeck said that it was worse to use the racial slur privately
than publicly – a statement that became a call to arms for her co-hosts.
Sherri Shepherd chimed in when Hasselbeck said that the word was, quote, "bad," saying,
"Don't tell me I can't use that word."
Hasselbeck responded to Shepherd with the very controversial statement,
"So you're telling me that I can't use it, but you can."
When Hasselbeck continued, saying that she would never use the word in the first place,
co-host Whoopi Goldberg said,
"This is a word that has meaning when you give it meaning.
[...] You have to understand that it's a word that's followed us around."
Things got so bad that Hasselbeck said it was, quote, "upsetting" to her and started tearing up.
This was one head-shaking conversation that took place on the series - adding to the ever-growing
list - that really did go too far.
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