'The View' host apologizes for 'unclear' comments about Turning Point USA
'The View' co-host Sara Haines reads out a legal disclaimer after the show appeared to link Turning Point USA with neo-Nazis who demonstrated outside its Florida event last weekend. TP condemned the demonstrators.
ABC News’ "The View" on Wednesday apologized to Turning Point USA after the conservative group called on the daytime gabfest to "retract the defamatory statements" made earlier this week or face legal action.
Fox News Digital first reported a scathing letter sent from Turning Point USA that gave "The View" until Wednesday to retract comments made by the show’s liberal panelists tying neo-Nazi demonstrators at its Tampa, Florida, event last weekend to the conservative group. "#SueTheView" trended on social media overnight and the ABC News program addressed the comments early in the first episode after network executives received the letter.
"On Monday we talked about the fact that there were openly neo-Nazi demonstrators outside the Florida Student Action Summit of the Turning Point USA group. We want to make clear that these demonstrators were gathered outside the event and that they were not invited or endorsed by Turning Point USA," co-host Sara Haines said.
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"A Turning Point USA spokesman said the group ‘100 percent condemns those ideologies’ and said Turning Point USA security tried to remove the neo-Nazis from the area but could not because they were on public property," Haines continued. "Also, Turning Point USA wanted us to clarify that this was a Turning Point USA Summit, and not a Republican Party event. So, we apologize for anything we said that may have been unclear on these points."
The conservative group isn’t satisfied with the statement.
"Whoopi (Goldberg) is the one who said it. She should be the one to offer the apology," a Turning Point USA spokesperson told Fox News Digital following Haines’ remarks.
On Monday, "The View" kicked off its program discussing the TPUSA Student Action Summit that occurred last weekend in Florida. "The View" co-hosts mocked the elaborate event for taking "a page from the WWE" simply because of special effects, and inaccurately portrayed the group as being officially tied to the GOP, while Joy Behar criticized the group because neo-Nazi protestors were outside the venue.
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"Neo-Nazis were out there in the front of the conference with anti-Semitic slurs and, you know, the Nazi swastika and a picture of a so-called Jewish person with exaggerated features, just like (Joseph) Goebbels did during the Third Reich. It’s the same thing, right out of that same playbook," Behar said.
Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Fla., on Friday, July 22, 2022. (Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
She then said that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis "did nothing," but failed to mention the Republican governor attended the event the day before neo-Nazis appeared.
Later on the program, "The View" read an on-air legal disclaimer to inform viewers that Turning Point USA condemned the neo-Nazis protestors who had "nothing to do" with the organization.
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"But you let them in, and you knew what they were," Goldberg said before the panelists were forced to read another disclaimer and explain the neo-Nazis were "outside protestors" and TPUSA didn’t let them in. "My point was metaphorical," she said.
The View" co-host Joy Behar declared that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis "did nothing" when neo-Nazi protestors were outside a Turning Point USA event at which the governor spoke. (Screenshot/ABC/TheView)
Turning Point USA issued the letter to ABC News executives, with a deadline of July 27 for a retraction and apology.
"The false statements of fact intentionally made during The View’s July 25th segment were unquestionably harmful to TPUSA’s reputation and brought the organization and its student affiliates into disrepute with the public, potential donors, and current and future business partners, posing a significant financial loss to the organization," the letter addressed to ABC News New York bureau chief Joshua Hoyos and ABC assistant chief counsel Ian Rosenberg said.
Despite Wednesday's on-air comments by Haines, the verified Twitter account for Turning Point USA wrote, "Whoopi remained silent and has not retracted her comments that TPUSA ‘metaphorically’ embraced ‘Nazis.’"