The cohosts of The View kicked off the week in celebration mode as moderator Whoopi Goldberg announced her grandson, Mason, had just welcomed his second child, making her a great-grandmother once again. (Fun fact: Her great-grands call her, simply, Whoopi.) After that, they dug into the first big “Hot Topic” of the day, which was, of course, the latest with Donald Trump. And at least two cohosts had a stark warning for him about what his “legacy” will be based on his recent actions.
The cohosts reacted to the latest news bit with Trump, particularly his acceptance of a brand new “peace prize” from FIFA. In response to that, Ana Navarro took it upon herself to gift the other panelists with their own “made-up” award medals.
After reviewing footage of Trump accepting the awards, a second clip of him calling the Kennedy Center Honors the Trump-Kennedy Center Honors, and noting that he’d canceled free national park admissions for MLK Day and Juneteeth and instead made his birthday a free day, Goldberg said, “I just want to say that to me, it doesn’t feel that much safer. Since we’re blowing up boats in the Caribbean, and ICE agents have arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal records. It doesn’t feel all that safe to me.”
Goldberg continued, “I mean, how much would Republicans have freaked out had [former Presidents Joe] Biden or [Barack] Obama done any of those things? … I don’t understand what the point is because what is he doing for us? What is that Janet Jackson song? ‘What Have You Done for Me?’ I’m saying that as America. What have you done for us lately, except pick up phony prizes to make yourself feel better?”
Sunny Hostin guessed that Trump’s enthusiasm over being given the inaugural FIFA peace prize was due to jealousy over Obama receiving the real Nobel Peace Prize. “I think we all know that Obama lives rent-free in Trump’s head, and he has for a really long time. And I think the fact that President Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize is still living rent-free in this president’s mind, and he wants the Nobel Peace Prize. He’s probably not going to get the Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t think he’s worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize,” she said. “Quite frankly, this is a made-up award for him, this FIFA award.” She went on to detail the FIFA organization’s history of “corruption scandals,” including an indictment by the U.S. in 2020, and said, “This seems very much like a pay-for-play type of situation for me as a former prosecutor, and I think we need to look at that if people can just buy this president by giving him a fake award, what else has happened that we don’t know about you?”
Navarro surmised that this honor was meant to deter Trump from conducting ICE raids during the next FIFA games, as the U.S. cohosts with Canada and Mexico. “So think Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, has figured out what practically every other world leader, every other corporate leader, have figured out that if you show up with a tsotchy, preferably covered in gold, and get to the 3-year-old in the Oval Office, he will be entertained, and he will be happy. Tim Cook showed up with a glass and gold apple thing. The guys from Switzerland showed up with a gold watch. Qatar gave him a $400 million jet.” It was then that she handed out her own medals to the cohosts to mock the move.
After that, the issue of Trump’s legacy came up, starting with Alyssa Farah Griffin.
“I do love a made-up award, because it’s probably the only kind I’ll ever get,” Griffin joked. “This just feels so cringe to me. Listen, President Trump, right now, is focused heavily on his legacy. He wants to make sure that the history books can’t dismiss him as a fluke, like, ‘Oh, that was a weird thing that happened, and we moved on.’ So that’s why you hear him talking a lot about the Nobel Peace Prize. He wants this. I’m calling it the Arc de Trump, but he wants this his own monument in Washington, D.C. He’s putting his names on different things throughout the capital.”
She continued, “And I think he’s had a heavy focus on the world stage, which, that’s always the job of president. I commended him on the deal in the Middle East. That made sense. I think it was smart policy. But what I keep hearing from his voters, people who count themselves as ‘America first’ voters, is it seems like he’s more distracted by what’s happening around the world and not delivering back home. And that is what will mark his legacy. If you voted for Trump, it’s probably because you thought he’s going to bring back manufacturing. He’s going to bring back affordability. He’s going to make the cost of living lower… I’ve heard that a lot of folks are just feeling like that’s not happening. He called the affordability crisis a ‘hoax.’ His legacy is going to be that he did not live up to what he promised his voters, if he doesn’t refocus back to what’s happening here in America.”
Sara Haines, meanwhile, said the real thing to watch with Trump is what’s going to happen after the Jeffrey Epstein file are released on December 19. “I don’t care about anything he’s doing. I think, once again, it’s a distraction from Pete Hegseth and the decisions he’s making in the Pentagon. I think the affordability thing, which everyone keeps bringing up, and he’s calling a ‘con job,’ but also the Epstein files, the Epstein files that are coming out December 19. And we just heard an interview that he said, ‘If these come out, some people are going to be hurt really bad.’ And I am OK with that. So I feel like keeping your eye on the prize of what is going on underneath the smoke is the important part,” she said.
Goldberg concluded the segment by returning to Griffin’s point, saying, “His personal stuff, I [couldn’t] care less. I want to know, what are you doing for us?… You said you would be the president for everybody, but you haven’t been the president for anybody. You’ve been the president just for you…He’s not our president. He’s a guy who likes to get butt kissed. That’s what he is. I need you to be the president, or your legacy — what’s left of it — is going to disappear, and you will just be a footnote like gas in the desert.”
The View, Weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC
