‘Stop Calling It A Lie!’ Whoopi Goldberg Battles Alyssa Farah Griffin About Biden’s 180 on Hunter Pardon
The View host Whoopi Goldberg battled with co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin’s accusation that President Joe Biden lied about his decision to pardon his son Hunter Biden.
On Sunday evening, Biden issued a “full and unconditional” pardon for his son relating to gun charges and tax crimes. Biden previously said he would not interfere in the Justice Department’s prosecution of Hunter by issuing him a pardon.
The move drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans alike. Most of the Monday panel on ABC’s The View, however, offered an empathetic acceptance of Biden’s move.
Co-host Sunny Hostin blasted critics for “hypocritical pearl-clutching” and argued that President-elect Donald Trump, who was convicted in a Manhattan hush money trial, had “escaped responsibility for his crimes.” She added that Trump had nominated Charles Kushner as ambassador to France, someone who had been pardoned by the president-elect during his first term.
Griffin, meanwhile, pushed back and argued that most Americans “face consequences for actions that they took” and that “nobody powerfully and politically connected is going to come sweep in.”
She continued: “This feeds the notion to a lot of this country that there’s a different set of rules for folks in power, and when we sit here and say, like: ‘Well, Donald Trump did X, Y, and Z, and how did he get elected?’ To a lot of this country, it just becomes noise. If you commit crimes and somebody powerful and connected in D.C., right, left, center, Biden, Trump, you’re going to be able to get away with it.”
She added: “I take issue with lying about it. I wanted to ask [Biden] here when he came on The View, but the thought was he said so many times he wasn’t going to pardon him. That, to me, is lying to the public. I felt bad for Karine Jean-Pierre; she had to say he wasn’t going to pardon him. That’s why they don’t trust Washington or politicians and I know a lot of us like Joe Biden, but I find it disappointing and bad for our institutions.”
As the conversation continued and co-host Ana Navarro said that she hoped Hunter Biden would make the most of this “great gift of freedom”, Griffin repeated her point.
“I respect it as a parent. I understand why he would do it, but I wanted to understand why lie about it for so long?” she asked.
“I would stop… I would stop calling it a lie,” Goldberg interrupted.
Griffin replied: “Okay. Why repeatedly saying you’re not not going to, and you do? The half of the country that doesn’t support Biden and doesn’t get to have phone calls and they’re looking at a system that only benefits the people who are in power. What precedent does that set?”
Goldberg responded by pointing, again, to Trump: “It’s a precedent for all of us to open our eyes because we’ve elected somebody who was in a similar situation who didn’t have a drug problem, who knew what he was doing. Who clearly stood and said, ‘I can do this’ and he did it.”
She added: “I think Biden had no intentions of pardoning Hunter, and I think the more stuff that went down… I think he said, ‘well, why am I busting my behind to stay straight and do this when nobody is? When no one else is?’”
“I think he thought he was going to win [the election],” Griffin retorted. “And I wish he would have been honest with the public.”
Watch above on ABC.
