The View audience gasps as Sunny Hostin calls out Elisabeth Hasselbeck voting for Donald Trump
Whoopi Goldberg shut down the impending conflict: “I’m going to stop everybody,” she said, as tension erupted moments into Hasselbeck’s Hot Topics table return.
What was meant to be a highly anticipated return quickly turned into one of the most talked-about moments of the episode. During a live segment of The View, Sunny Hostin directly addressed Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s past political stance — and the studio reaction was immediate.
Moments after the Survivor alum and former View cohost (who served on the panel from 2003-13) rejoined the panel Monday to fill in for first-time mother Alyssa Farah Griffin, the personalities clashed over Donald Trump’s actions in ordering a strike on Iran that ultimately killed the country’s leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Deep into the conversation, Whoopi Goldberg already attempted to quell passionate dispute among her colleagues, telling them, “Let’s not do this cross-talk thing. Finish your sentence,” after her peers spoke over each other during the heated conversation.
Later, Sunny Hostin criticized the president’s actions and took a jab at Hasselbeck in the process. “I thought this was going to be the president of peace. I thought this president wanted to win a Nobel Peace Prize for peace. That is not what I’m seeing,” she said. “I’m not seeing ‘America First.’ I think people that voted for Trump — I was not one of them, I think you were — those people wanted ‘America First.'”
The audience lightly gasped at Hostin for calling out Hasselbeck on the air. Hasselbeck then smiled at the dig, and confirmed Hostin’s assessment: “I proudly voted for Trump because the alternative was not great, and we’d absolutely be under the wrong power if the alternative [was elected],” she replied.
Goldberg stepped in once again, putting a stop to further conflict as she looked into the camera and said, “Now I’m going to stop everybody. Because we’re going to go and come back and we can continue the conversation then.”
Earlier in the discussion, Hostin staunchly condemned Trump and the Israeli government’s coordinated attack on Iran, which led to the country’s retaliatory attacks on regions including Dubai, Tel Aviv, and more.
“The bottom line is this is an illegal war, this is an unconstitutional war, only Congress can wage war and declare war. That’s the first thing,” Hostin alleged. “This is an illegal war, this is a presidential war.”
A White House official declined to comment on the record to Entertainment Weekly.
At the top of her return episode, Hasselbeck spoke about “civil discourse” among women, more than a year after she publicly slammed current cohost Joy Behar and the talk show itself as a “sinking” endeavor in January 2025.
Over the weekend, Hasselbeck also posted on Instagram that a friend had gifted her the “Armor of God” to protect her during her View stint, with the package including a “helmet of salvation,” “breastplate of righteousness,” and “belt of truth,” among other things.
The View airs weekdays on ABC.
