The View‘s hosts have broken their silence about the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel Live!as their show gets put under the microscope.
On Monday September 22, co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Ana Navarro, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin finally addressed what was going on, after two episodes of silence.
As 69-year-old Goldberg opened the show, she explained the panel “took a breath to see if Jimmy [Kimmel] was going to say anything about it” first.
“I mean, look, did y’all really think we were not gonna talk about Jimmy Kimmel? I mean, have you watched the show over the last 29 seasons? You know, no one silences us,” she said.
His show was pulled after comments he made on air about Charlie Kirk’s death, after he was killed at a campus event at Utah Valley University.
Goldberg explained that their silence was partly due to taping times, but they were going to get into it “immediately”.
She explained “you can not like a show and it can go off the air” and “someone can say something they shouldn’t and get taken off the air,” but “the government can not apply pressure to force someone to be silenced.”
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The View aired clips of Ted Cruz and Rand Paul disagreeing with the Kimmel controversy.
Goldberg added of President Donald Trump: “I don’t understand how you are the man in charge of the nation and you still don’t understand how the First Amendment works.”
Hostin echoed that and added, “the president of the United States should know what the freedom of speech means.”
Navarro spoke next and said, “For me, I want to start by thanking our loyal viewers for demanding truth and courage from us. You deserve it and we will give it to you.”
Viewers and fans of the show took to The View‘s Instagram account and left plenty of comments asking why they had stayed silent about the Kimmel drama.
“The part that I don’t understand that is so ironic to me is how the horrible, senseless assassination of Charlie Kirk – a man I disagreed with – who stood for debate, who stood for freedom of speech, is being used to silence people and cancel people,” she continued.
“I don’t understand how in this country, where the First Amendment made to the constitution was to guarantee freedom of the press and freedom of speech, the government itself is using its weight and power to bully and scare people into silence.”
Navarro, who has lived in Nicaragua, spoke about her own experience living through a “right wing dictatorship.
Farah Griffin also encouraged viewers to “think about the precedent it sets down the road.”
The comments from the co-hosts on the show come after FCC Chair Brendan Carr said that it might be “worthwhile” looking into The View next, during an interview on The Scott Jennings Radio Show.
“When you look at these other TV shows, what’s interesting is the FCC does have a rule called the equal opportunity rule,” Carr said.
“But there’s an exception to that rule called the bona fide news exception, which means if you are a bona fide news program, you don’t have to abide by the equal opportunity rule.
“I think it’s worthwhile to have the FCC look into whether The View and some of the programs that you have still qualify as bona fide news programs and therefore exempt from the equal opportunity regime that Congress has put in place.”
The View‘s comments about not addressing the Jimmy Kimmel show being pulled came just hours before an announcement came from Disney.
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In a new statement released on Tuesday AEST, confirmed that his show will be reinstated after it was suspended following the controversial monologue.
“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country,” a spokesperson for the Walt Disney Company, which owns ABC, said in a statement to CNN.
“It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.
“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”
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