Flashback: Sunny Hostin Says Jim Jordan 'Terrorized' Her During Hearing - The Tape Tells the Real Story
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Sunny Hostin can’t keep a story straight — when it’s based on a lie.
The co-host on ABC’s “The View” — and a staple of the kind of preening absurdity that characterizes the morning talk show — went on the offensive against Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan three times in October over his behavior during a congressional hearing four years ago.
But not once did she get even close to the truth — and video evidence proves it.
Hostin was part of the liberal pile-on on Jordan after his name surfaced as a potential House speaker to replace the ousted Kevin McCarthy.
Since Jordan, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, has never backed away from a fight with Democrats, he’s been a top target of the talking heads who dominate establishment television.
And Hostin and her cackling colleagues on “The View” were no exception.
Hostin opened her attack on Jordan during the show’s Oct. 5 episode, when she claimed that he had “terrorized” her during the hearing on Capitol Hill. She cited an interview former House Speaker John Boehner, also an Ohioan, gave CBS News in 2021 where he referred to Jordan as being among the “political terrorists” he counted as his enemies in Congress.
“I testified in Congress about something so simple — cameras in courtrooms,” Hostin said. “He came in late. He looked disheveled, and he immediately was screaming and yelling and terrorized me and the other experts on the panel, and describing him as a terrorist is exactly that.”
Of all of those statements, the only thing that’s true is that Hostin was testifying that day, Sept. 26, 2019.
Below is the video of Jordan’s time with the witnesses from that hearing, published by Newsbusters on Oct. 9. It showed that Jordan didn’t address Hostin at all, confining his questions — aggressive, to be sure — to Jeffrey Toobin, the liberal author, commentator and the now-well-known practitioner of the art of self-gratification.
(Nor was Jordan disheveled, screaming or yelling.)
On Oct. 11, Hostin repeated the calumny.
“I’ve, you know, testified in front of Jim Jordan,” she told her co-hosts on “The View.” “He seems like such a lunatic, and he seems like such a wild card. And he’s terrifying!”
Seriously? An adult American would call Jordan’s behavior “terrifying”?
To be fair, during the Oct. 5 statement, Hostin said the congressman had “terrorized me and the other experts,” so a charitable spirit could cut her a break that Jordan’s aggressive questioning of Toobin had “terrorized” her as a kind of liberal collateral damage. And in the Oct. 11 case, she might have been remembering her feelings rather than facts. (Liberals do tend to confuse the two.)
But even a charitable spirit would have trouble reconciling Hostin’s statement on Oct. 18 about Jordan’s travails in Congress with anything resembling reality.
“I mean, karma doesn’t lose anyone’s address,” Hostin said. “And I’m kind of enjoying it, in a sense, because I’ve had my own personal interaction with Jim Jordan, where he terrorized me. …
“Yeah, when I testified in front of Congress, he was, like, spitting. He was yelling at me so much that he started spitting.”
The video clearly shows that not only was Jordan not yelling at Hostin so much that he started spitting, but he never said a word to the woman the entire time.
Now, viewers can agree or disagree with whether Jordan’s line of questioning for Toobin was out of line with the committee’s topic of inquiry (cameras in the courtroom), but there’s no debate about whether Hostin’s claims are true.
They’re not.
They’re liberal “memories” — manufactured out of thin air. It’s like Hillary Clinton braving sniper file in Bosnia (she didn’t) or just about any story President Joe Biden tells about his life.
After her Oct. 5 tirade, Hostin had to read a legal note from “The View’s” attorneys clarifying that her statements about Jordan being “linked” to a sex scandal at Ohio State in the late 1980s and early ’90s had been wrong.
Sunny was forced to read a legal note to say Jim Jordan did not know about the sexual abuse. pic.twitter.com/Wrj7mPUhHv
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 5, 2023
Now, she needs to come clean about her testimony in front of Jordan that day.
The congressman didn’t attempt to terrorize her. He probably didn’t terrify her. And, as the record shows, he didn’t even talk to her.
Hostin is a lawyer, an author and a prominent cultural personality. If anyone should be able to keep a story straight, it’s someone with a resume like that.
But for a liberal like Hostin, feelings trump facts every time.
It’s how the country ends up with outrage over Travyon Martin, who was killed in 2012 in Florida while assaulting neighborhood watch volunteer
George Zimmerman.
It’s how the country ended up idolizing Michael Brown — killed while attacking a police officer in Missouri in 2014.
It’s how the country gets frenzies over frauds like Jussie Smollett or outrage over unlikely claims like those of Bubba “the Noose” Wallace.
It’s not how reality happens, though.
And Sunny Hostin — and the rest of the left — need to get that straight.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
