‘The View’ moves on with a simple ‘OK’ after Whoopi Goldberg’s Holocaust comments
NEW YORK — With Tara Setmayer, a former GOP communications director on Capitol Hill, sitting in Wednesday as guest co-host for a second day this week, Whoopi Goldberg’s colleagues on “The View” had virtually nothing to say about her two-week suspension for her comments on Jews and the Holocaust.
At the top of the ABC talk show, co-host Joy Behar noted Goldberg’s absence and said simply, with a tiny head tilt, “OK,” before moving on to other topics. The show went on with four co-hosts.
Goldberg’s suspension was announced by ABC News President Kim Godwin on Tuesday, the day after Goldberg said during a discussion of a Tennessee school board’s banning of the book “Maus” that the Holocaust was “not about race … it’s about man’s inhumanity to other man.”
She apologized hours later and again on air Tuesday, but not before her words rallied critics and defenders alike.
“While Whoopi has apologized, I’ve asked her to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments. The entire ABC News organization stands in solidarity with our Jewish colleagues, friends, family and communities,” Godwin said in a statement.
“My words upset so many people, which was never my intention,” Goldberg said Tuesday morning. “I understand why now and for that I am deeply, deeply grateful because the information I got was really helpful and helped me understand some different things.”
“You all saw the news. Whoopi will be back here in two weeks.”
— The View’s Joy Behar starts today’s show by acknowledging Whoopi Goldberg’s absence following suspension for remark about the Holocaust “not about race.” pic.twitter.com/GXlNqQ9PnH
— The Recount (@therecount) February 2, 2022
Goldberg’s suspension elicited criticism from Jews across the political spectrum.
“It distracts from real danger — like Nazis on our streets, swastikas all over the place, and the normalization of antisemitic conspiracies by people like Tucker Carlson who face zero consequence,” tweeted Amy Spitalnick, executive director of Integrity First for America, which sued the organizers of the deadly 2017 white -supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia. (She was referring to a special that Carlson, the Fox News host whom the ADL has called to have fired over his embrace of a white supremacist conspiracy theory, is airing this week condemning George Soros, the Jewish philanthropist who is a leading target of antisemitism.)
Joel Pollak, a prominent conservative pundit, tweeted a similar sentiment.
“There is actual, dangerous antisemitism in the world, and while Whoopi Goldberg would never extend me the same benefit of the doubt, this whole ordeal is a mockery of what facing up to antisemitism means,” he wrote. “It’s virtue signaling of the worst kind because it obscures the problem.”
Meanwhile, even those who had vociferously criticized Goldberg’s comments said a suspension was not a satisfying response.
“No one asked for #Whoopi to take a leave. We asked for education. We asked for facts,” tweeted Logan Levkoff. “This is not helpful AT ALL.”