“The booing is fucking us up,” The View co-host Whoopi Goldberg told the morning show’s audience during a commercial break on Thursday. “It’s messing with everyone’s mic. You can grimace and all that. All we hear is booing.”
Goldberg was trying to restore a sense of calm and civility after a rancorous first interview segment with Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend, former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle. (The Hollywood Reporter attended the show as a member of the audience and took notes.)
Booing is a no-no for members of the show’s audience, but the crowd on Thursday alternatively booed and cheered as Trump and Guilfoyle clashed with members of the show’s cast, including Joy Behar, Abby Huntsman, Sunny Hostin and Meghan McCain.
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The front rows were stocked with audience members who seemed to be mostly supportive of the first son, including a man wearing a Trump hat who asked, “Who killed [Jeffrey] Epstein?” during a commercial break at the end of the show.
During another commercial break, one woman in the audience tried taking Goldberg to task for a comment she made more than 10 years ago about director Roman Polanski, which Trump tried to repurpose as an attack on Goldberg.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the woman said to Goldberg. “Then be quiet and listen to me,” the co-host responded. (The woman was also asked by a member of the show’s staff to stop using her cellphone, another no-no for audience members.)
Later, as the woman left the studio with a fellow audience member, she said of Goldberg: “I definitely riled her up. She was so upset.”
McCain seemed particularly uncomfortable with the presence of Trump and Guilfoyle and did not make eye contact with either one when they first took the stage.
She later thanked her fellow co-hosts for the way they handled the appearance, which was timed to coincide with the release of Trump’s book, Triggered.
At one point in the show, McCain turned to the man in the audience wearing the Trump hat and said, “If you can let me speak, I would appreciate it.”
The interview started off combatively, with Huntsman taking Trump to task for retweeting an article exposing the name of the Ukraine whistleblower.
When Trump responded that he was speaking as a “private citizen,” a woman in the audience responded, “You’re not a private citizen!”
Trump tried attacking ABC for the network’s handling of a 2015 interview with Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who has accused the late Epstein of sexual misconduct. “ABC right now is chasing down a whistleblower about all the Epstein stuff,” he said, referring to a network investigation to determine who leaked an internal recording of ABC News anchor Amy Robach.
Trump also accused Behar of “wearing blackface” (in reference to a picture of a 29-year-old Behar dressed as “a beautiful African woman” that was shown on a May 2016 View episode.)
Both Goldberg and Behar encouraged Trump to lower his voice. “Stop yelling!” Goldberg said. “You didn’t have to yell that,” Behar said. “I can hear you.” (“I’m new here,” Trump responded. “Sorry.”)
After Goldberg’s no-booing warning went unheeded, a warm-up comedian tried again during a later commercial break. “No booing, no yelling out,” she said. “No booing, everybody.”
When Goldberg told the audience that the Trump/Guilfoyle segment was ending, a man in the audience yelled: “Praise the lord!”
A woman in the audience who described herself as a “non-Trump” person told THR that she was happy the show had invited President Donald Trump’s son on. “I think it’s good,” she said. “Let him be uncomfortable.”
Thursday’s show, which was The View’s 5,000th episode, began on a much lighter note, with a cake tribute and congratulatory videos from Oprah Winfrey and Taylor Swift. Things went downhill from there.
