During the Monday, December 1 broadcast of ABC’s “The View,” co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Alyssa Farah Griffin got into a fight over President Joe Biden’s full, blanket pardon of his son Hunter Biden on the evening of Sunday. December 1. Particularly, Whoopi freaked out when Griffin noted that President Biden lied about plans to pardon Hunter.
As background, Biden said, explaining the pardon minimizing both the federal gun and tax charges brought against Hunter, “Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.”
Then, pointing to the unbelievably lenient plea deal that unraveled as another justification for the pardon, he said, “The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election. Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room – with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process. Had the plea deal held, it would have been a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”
In any case, Griffin, bringing up the matter of Biden and his administration previously saying that he wouldn’t pardon Hunter, said, “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.”
Continuing, she added that it is bad for the country for the president and his administration to just be blatantly lying. She said, “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.”
Whoopi, interjecting and sounding off on Griffin having accused Biden of being a liar, despite the term being accurate in this case, snapped, “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?” Continuing, Whoopi then said, “I would stop calling it a lie.”
Griffin then noted that he did, in fact, lie, and questioned why he did so. She said, “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, replying with a non sequiter, snapped that Trump was in “a similar situation,” and made his decision with a clear head, saying, “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.”
Goldberg then went on to add that she thinks that President Biden changed his mind about the pardon after Trump won the election, again accusing Trump of wrongdoing without providing details, saying, “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?’” Then, when Griffin said she wished Biden had just been honest, Whoopi snapped back, “Look. He’s the president, the sitting president, and he can do whatever he wants to until his time is up.”
Watch their spat here:
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