‘The View’: Whoopi Goldberg Says If Trump Doesn’t Get Prison Time ‘We’re Screwed’ (VIDEO)

Amanda Bell May 31, 2024, 12:19 pm

Whoopi Goldberg on 'The View.' — Lou Rocco/ABC via Getty Images

All six stars of The View hit the table for Friday’s very unique episode for one reason: “Don’t adjust your TV set. Yes, I’m here on a Friday because this is a very unique moment in history,” Whoopi Goldberg explained. “That’s why we’re all at the table.”

Unlike most days, there wasn’t a varied list of “Hot Topics” for the team to discuss; the only thing to talk about was the conviction of Donald Trump on 34 felonies in New York Thursday. And, as expected, they each had a lot of feelings about the subject — with some being positively giddy and others finding it to be a “somber” development.

“I’m gonna say something you’ve never heard me say before, but Donald John Trump is now a convicted felon,” Goldberg said to start things off with a nod to her reticence to say his name. “Yesterday a New York jury found him guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to hide a sex scandal that would hurt his 2016 presidential campaign. And that’s what the problem was. That’s why he was in court because he did that. He did that.”

“And then of course, he played the victim outside of the courtroom,” she added, before playing footage of Trump addressing the media and calling the trial a “disgrace” before promising to “fight for the Constitution.”

“You’d have to read it first!” Joy Behar said in response.

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From there, the conversation quickly turned into a “where were you when” chat due to the historic nature of the event, and everyone offered their emotional reactions.

Behar was unabashedly giddy about the conviction, saying that when she heard it, “I was at Costco buying 10 boxes of Keurig coffee. And my watch started to buzz, and I got so excited I started leaking a little bit,” Behar joked before offering a more serious analysis. “They’re gonna say it was rigged. This is rigged… Everything’s rigged according to him. But you know there was a jury of 12, and they all to a person said he was guilty on all 34 counts. One of the jurors, juror number two, I was reading, he only watched Truth Social… as a person who only gets his news from Donald Trump’s … social media, and he even thinks he’s guilty? Excuse me, Donald. It’s not rigged.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration official, chimed in to say that she thinks this outcome will make Trump even more angry on the campaign trail: “Knowing Donald Trump personally, there’s something in him that thinks he’ll get away with everything,” she said. “My one caution is he does have an appeals process ahead of the elections and five months. There is a world in which he could get away with this if he becomes president before this is fully adjudicated. And running for president to stay out of jail is a hell of a motivator. He’s going to do and say absolutely anything that he can to get elected. So buckle up because it’s rage and retribution ahead.”

Ana Navarro, on the other hand, thought this was some long overdue comeuppance for Trump, saying, “This is a man who made my life a living hell for four years, has made the life of our country a living hell for six years. And so he deserves to be accountable. He has been Teflon Don his entire life. He has been getting away with cheating and lying and doing… criminal acts for all this time. You know, who’s who you know who’s grabbed him back? E Jean Carroll. Letitia James. And Stormy Daniels.”

Sara Haines then shared why she felt “like something punched me in the chest” upon hearing the verdicts because she didn’t know how to explain it to her children: “It was so somber and sober to get that news because we’re living in a country where we have a former president convicted, who’s also running for office.”

Finally, Sunny Hostin shared how blissed out she was by the news, saying, “I didn’t feel somber. I felt like the Knicks won the tournament. I felt like America won. I felt like New York won. I felt like the Manhattan DA’s office won. I felt like I won.”

TRUMP GUILTY ON 34 FELONY COUNTS: #WhoopiGoldberg, @JoyVBehar, @sarahaines, @Sunny, @Alyssafarah and @ananavarro react to a New York jury finding the former president guilty of falsifying business records in order to hide a sex scandal that would hurt his 2016 campaign. pic.twitter.com/O9EfhijCPc

— The View (@TheView) May 31, 2024

After the break, Goldberg steered the conversation to a discussion of the potential sentencing Trump might face, explaining why she hopes he’ll get some jail time.

“I want [the judge] to give him six months because one of the things we’re hearing from all these young men that we’ve been talking to is they love him because he has no consequences,” Goldberg said at the top.

Hostin then took it a bit further, saying, “I spent this morning speaking to someone from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, they’re called street fighters. He believes that they will recommend a one-year term in prison, and that is because when you spend a year in prison in New York or under, you serve in Rikers Island.”

Hostin added that she thinks Trump deserves to be sentenced to incarceration “because he has shown an utter disregard for our institutions and prosecutors … You are not just recommending a sentence so they can be rehabilitated or so they can be punished. You’re sending a message to the community.” Ultimately, Hostin added, she wants him to have six months in jail and six months probation.

After some further discussion, Goldberg returned to her initial point, talking through the play-off music from her producer to exclaim, “I’m hoping for all of our sakes that we’re not chasing this. Because if we don’t have any consequences here, we are screwed. Because it means that everybody and their mama can decide they want to go do what he did. And we give them permission to do what he said he could do, which was shoot people on Fifth Avenue and not have any problems.”

WILL TRUMP SERVE TIME IN PRISON? After a New York jury found the former president guilty on all counts in his hush money trial, #TheView co-hosts question if he will serve time. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/ZjE5RgLrBl

— The View (@TheView) May 31, 2024