‘The View’: Sunny Hostin Shuts Down Donald Trump Jr. Over His Interpretation of Federal Crimes

The ladies of The View stepped firmly in the political realm on Thursday with the arrival of Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle. The son of President Donald Trump was in attendance to promote his new book titled Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us.

One would think that the show got exactly the type of reaction it wanted to Trump’s appearance, including the chorus of boos that greeted him and the Fox News personality. Whoopi Goldberg, Meghan McCain and Joy Behar all had their moments to spar with the president’s son, but Sunny Hostin might have had the standout moment of the visit.

During the explosive chat, Hostin brought up Trump’s decision to tweet out an article naming the alleged whistleblower who sparked the impeachment inquiry against his father.

“The whole point of releasing a name is to intimidate someone, to threaten someone, and to scare other people from coming out. That’s something that dictators do. I have lived in China. I have seen that first hand. That’s not what America does. We stand by our people,” co-host Abby Huntsman told Trump.

“What you seem to have done, it feels very disingenuous because you can’t say, ‘I’m a private citizen,’ and yet you’re in the middle of all of this,” Whoopi Goldberg added. “Everybody talked to you, you know, you’re part of this.”

But it was Hostin that schooled Trump after he shared his thoughts on the situation.

“Kimberly, you’re a lawyer, we have known each other, you’re a former prosecutor,” Hostin said. “Did you advise your boyfriend that it is a federal crime to out a whistleblower?”

“I did come out of the bathroom and say, ‘I left you alone for 10 minutes — what happened?’” Guilfoyle told Hostin as Trump chimed in to note that what he did wasn’t a crime. Except according to Hostin, it was a crime.

“That’s a lie, that’s not true,” Hostin responded. “It is a crime. My law degree says it is.”

This was all around Trump trying to blast back, noting he hadn’t broken any laws and was only defending his father. While he admits the tweet naming the whistleblower was “imprudent,” he didn’t feel he did anything wrong.

“I don’t regret doing it,” he said. “I shouldn’t have to forgo my First Amendment rights. It’s out there, I’ve been reading it for a week, I saw it on the Drudge Report. This is not some secret,” Trump said.

While many in the crowd were booing and chastising Trump throughout the interview, he also had his supporters nestled in the front row. It actually prompted co-host Joy Behar to scold the crowd and say, “this is not some MAGA rally, okay?”