Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar Help Promote Iranian Propaganda by Blaming Trump for Downed Passenger Jet
When Democrats really want to smear President Donald Trump, “The View” is the place to do it.
The ABC daytime gabfest, starring a cast of virulently anti-Trump celebrities, has established itself as one of the most outspoken outposts of criticism for the administration on the media landscape — no mean feat in a landscape loaded with loathing for the president.
But co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar took the show’s stance against Trump to a new low on Monday by implicitly blaming his administration for the fact that the Iranian military shot down a Ukraine passenger jet last week, killing 176 passengers and crew on board.
To an American not afflicted by Trump Derangement Syndrome, it might not make sense.
But for Goldberg and Behar, when it comes to Trump, making sense isn’t always an issue.
The moment came when the “The View” co-hosts were conducting a remote interview with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a creature of the Washington “swamp” who has already demonstrated he has no problems toying with the truth if it means hurting Donald Trump.
During the interview, Schiff had just told “The View” panel that he had heard nothing in an intelligence briefing to back up Trump’s decision Jan. 2 to kill Iranian terror general Qassem Soleimani with a drone strike in Baghdad.
The Soleimani killing led to a retaliatory missile strike Wednesday from Iran on bases in Iraq that house U.S. troops. The Ukrainian plane was shot down over Tehran in the hours after that attack was launched.
Trump has since said the Soleimani strike prevented future “imminent” attacks on U.S. interests, but Schiff disagreed.
“I don’t think the evidence, the intelligence, justifies the targeted killing of a loathsome and, yes, bloodthirsty person,” the California Democrat told “The View.”
“The missile attacks that Iran took as a result of that strike could have killed dozens of our service members and thank God that didn’t happen,” he said. “But the risk, I think, to our personnel has gone up, not down, and I don’t think it was justified by the intelligence, at least not the intelligence that I’ve seen.”
As though trained to applaud at any liberal point, the audience clapped at Schiff’s conclusion, and then Goldberg and Behar jumped in.
“That Ukrainian plane would still be alive,” Goldberg said.
“The people on that plane would still be alive today,” Behar added.
It’s worth noting here that the audience did not applaud, which might mean Goldberg went too far even for them.
The view from “The View” did not go over well with conservatives on social media.
This is the insanity of the left. They will blame everything on Trump, not matter how stupid it is. pic.twitter.com/y3LihO3jwJ
— The Most Revered Loose Ocasio-Cannon (@LooseCannonInAz) January 13, 2020
It is sadly not surprising to see those on the left use the death of a terrorist who killed Americans, to attack America. It is not really the president they are attacking. This is just an excuse to attack and weaken our nation and get one step closer to destroying her.
— jcope (@jtcope4) January 13, 2020
Kinda disgusting how they feed this propaganda on daytime television
— rob (@RobbHinojosa) January 13, 2020
That last one makes a great point — it’s pure propaganda masquerading as a TV talk show.
In fact, it specifically echoes propaganda from Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Rouhani released a statement Friday that accepted Iranian responsibility for downing the plane but said it occurred because in “an atmosphere of threats and intimidation by the aggressive American regime against the Iranian nation following the martyrdom of general Qassem Soleimani and with the aim of defending against possible U.S. Army attacks, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed forces were on full alert.”
Strictly speaking, it might be true that if Trump had not ordered the Soleimani strike, that Ukraine Airlines Flight 752 would never have been shot down, but implicitly blaming the president of the United States for the apparently accidental destruction of a passenger jet over the Iranian capital of Tehran should be too poisonous even for the scorpions on “The View.”
The incident occurred after a series of increasingly serious provocations by the Iranian government, including the U.S. Embassy siege in Baghdad by pro-Iranian militants only days before the Soleimani strike. Why don’t Goldberg and Behar blame that for the Ukraine plane tragedy?
It wasn’t Trump who made the Iranian military incompetent enough to shoot down an outgoing jet over the country’s capital.
And it wasn’t Trump who made the Iranians lie about it until overwhelming evidence proved they were lying.
But anti-Trump propaganda has been a purview of “The View” since well before the 2016 election, and it hasn’t missed a beat since then.
And when Democrats like Adam Schiff need a place they can really smear the president without fear of contradiction, they know “The View” is the place to do it, even it means pushing Iranian propaganda in the process.
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