ABC News’ “The View” co-hosts ganged up on Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera on Thursday after he would not blame President Donald Trump and his rhetoric for suspicious packages sent to prominent Democrats and CNN’s New York City bureau last week.
It didn’t take long for mainstream media members to dispense with the notion of impartiality and blame Trump for suspect Cesar Sayoc’s actions.
Sayoc, a supporter of the president’s, owned a van plastered with stickers of Democratic lawmakers shown in crosshairs — and other stickers saying, “CNN sucks.”
“Can you honestly say President Trump’s words and actions didn’t inspire this guy?” Hostin (above, far right) demanded.
Rivera insisted he didn’t understand “why the hideous crimes committed during” Trump’s presidency “are attributed to Donald Trump.”
But when Rivera tried to list some mass murders that occurred during former President Barack Obama’s tenure in office — let’s just say “The View’s” liberal co-hosts would not allow it.
“You’re being intellectually dishonest there,” Hostin interrupted. “This guy had a tricked-out Trump van!”
Although Rivera agreed that “words matter,” he insisted that “crazy people are crazy people” and “crazy people can do crazy things.”
But co-host Joy Behar (above, far left) vehemently rejected that idea. “Obama never said the things that Trump says, not even once, Geraldo, again,” she said. “Come on.”
Rivera disagreed and warned, “If we start blaming the speech rather than the perpetrator, we lose sight of what’s happening.”
That’s when co-host Meghan McCain chimed in, noting she didn’t blame Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for the unhinged supporter of his who gunned down House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and targeted other GOP lawmakers at a baseball practice in the summer of 2017.
“Bernie never said those things either,” Behar replied.
That spurred McCain to retort, “But he was a Bernie Sanders supporter.”
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Co-host Whoopi Goldberg took control of the conversation at that point — and insisted Sanders was never to blame for his supporter’s crime because Sanders “never encouraged anybody to go out and beat anybody up or hurt anybody or do anything.”
“I think there is a difference between what happens on somebody’s watch and what happens … You have whipped up folks and they don’t — in their fervor, some of the folks … who may or may not have mental issues, you don’t want to whip people up because you don’t know who you’re whipping up,” Goldberg said.
Hostin tried one more time to get Rivera to answer whether Trump’s tough words “matter.”
“You both are making the same very telling point, but words do matter. Therefore, you cannot listen to CNN for two minutes without having an attack on the president as being a liar, being misogynistic,” Rivera argued.
Hostin dismissed that criticism of CNN’s biased coverage, saying, “Is that an attack or is that the truth?”
“Facts are facts,” both Hostin and Behar said — continuing to claim the facts prove Trump is to blame for Sayoc’s crimes.
Watch more of the tense exchange below:
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