Whoopi Goldberg has launched a political inquiry into the current state of American government, as she led The View cohosts in a Tuesday morning conversation with Sen. Chuck Schumer by looking him in the eye to grill him about his controversial vote in support of a spending bill.
The EGOT-winning actress opened the talk show’s latest high-profile political interview by questioning Schumer about his recent vote — alongside nine other Democrats — in support of a Republican-led spending bill that narrowly avoided a government shutdown with a final tally of 54-46, but aligned with more conservative ideologies.
“Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s sudden change of heart about the Republican spending bill helped avoid a government shutdown, but opened him up to some harsh criticism and questions about his leadership from his own party,” Goldberg said on The View, which welcomed Schumer to discuss the move and his new book Antisemitism in America: A Warning. “So, I’m just going to throw it out there: Why? What were you thinking? And, why?”
Schumer admitted that he “knew it was a difficult choice” and accepted that he’d “get a lot of criticism” for it, but he felt that he “had to do it” as a leader in the party. He weighed the choice of continuing government spending versus shutting the entire government down over a stalemate that would lead to “devastation like we’ve never seen” before.
“Worse than we’re seeing now?” Goldberg cut in to ask, with Schumer replying, “Much. That’s why I did it. I wasn’t going to take this flak just for having a lot of fun. The bottom line is, the government shutdown works like this. All government spending is stopped. All. And then the executive branch, [Donald] Trump, [Elon] Musk…. they could cut off anything they want simply by saying it’s not essential.”
He went on to cite SNAP, mass transit, and Medicaid as examples of things that could be deemed “not essential” by conservatives in power, with “no check” to get those things back on track, per Schumer, who later added, “When you’re a leader, if you see a real crisis a little bit down the road, your job is to stand up and say, ‘We can’t do that!'”
Chuck Schumer on ‘The View’. ABC
Sara Haines told Schumer that she agreed with his decision, but pointed out that only nine Democrats went along with him, asking “How is that leadership?” if he was only able to court a small number of party votes. Schumer side-stepped the question without directly answering it, and instead urged his party to “act” and fight the “right-wing group” in “the smartest way possible” in a way that can’t lead to a shutdown.
Joy Behar stepped in to point out that Trump publicly praised Schumer for his vote, which Schumer categorized as the president “trolling” him.
Schumer also fielded a question from conservative panelist (and former Trump associate) Alyssa Farah Griffin about potentially stepping aside over a division between more veteran leadership and newer Democrats, though he said he won’t because he’s focusing on winning new Senate seats for the party, and considers himself to be an “orchestra leader” at large.
After a commercial break, legal expert Sunny Hostin also confronted Schumer with her opinion: “It gives me no pleasure to say this to you because we are friends, but I think you caved. I think you and nine other Democrats caved. I don’t think you showed the fight that this party needs right now because you’re playing by a rulebook, where the other party has thrown the rulebook away,” which prompted an impassioned response from the politician.
“First I’d say, Sunny, no one wants to fight more than me and no one fights more than me. You’ve got to fight smart. That bill, it was bad. I hated it, but it does far less damage. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are far more susceptible to being eliminated,” he observed, comparing the scenarios by describing them as: “One chops off one of your fingers, the other chops off your arm.”
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The interview came days after Goldberg addressed The View‘s haters who falsely claim that the show only presents a one-sided view, and should be taken off the air as a result.
“One of the things people would love to see, people always say, ‘You should take The View off television.’ You know why? Because we give you an opportunity. We don’t tell you what to think, we say, ‘This is what I think,'” Goldberg said on the March 13 broadcast. “When we do that, that is how you have the dialogue. It’s not personal, you know?”
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC.
