Whoopi Goldberg has apologized to Turning Point USA after The View linked the conservative organization to neo-Nazis. Days after the ABC morning show alleged the conservative student group invited neo-Nazis into its conference in Florida last weekend, Goldberg addressed the comments and formally apologized live on air.
Talking directly into the camera during Thursday’s show, Goldberg acknowledged that “in Monday’s conversation about Turning Point USA, I put the young people at the conference in the same category as the protesters outside.” Goldberg went on to note that she doesn’t “like it when people make assumptions about me,” admitting that “it’s not any better when I make assumptions about other people, which I did.” She concluded, per Deadline, “So, my bad, I’m sorry.”
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Goldberg’s apology came days after The View landed itself in hot water over a Hot Topics discussion on Monday about the Turning Point USA conference, which was held in Tampa, Florida. During the broadcast, Goldberg’s co-host Joy Behar stated, “Neo-Nazis were out there in the front of the conference with anti-semitic slurs and … the Nazi swastika and a picture of a so-called Jewish person with exaggerated features, just like Goebbels did during the Third Reich. It’s the same thing, right out of the same playbook.”
Later in the broadcast, Sarah Haines read the group’s condemnation of the neo-Nazis. However, Goldberg chimed in, “You let them in and you knew what they were, so you are complicit.” She later explained that she was speaking metaphorically.
Amid the comments, Turning Point USA sent a cease-and-desist letter to ABC News accusing The View of making “defamatory statements.” Following the letter, Haines on Wednesday read a statement from The View apologizing for the remarks. That statement read, “On Monday we talked about the fact that were openly Neo-Nazi demonstrators outside the Florida student action summit of the Turning Point USA group. We want to make clear that these demonstrators were gathered outside the event and that they were not invited or endorsed by Turning Point USA.” Haines went on to share that a spokesperson for Turning Point USA wanted to clarify that they condemn the ideologies expressed by those demonstrators.” The statement went on to share that in a statement from the organization, Turning Point USA “100 percent condemns those ideologies,” and said that Turning Point USA security “tried to remove the Neo-Nazis from the area but could not because they were on public property.”
