Throughout Savannah Chrisley‘s tenure as guest host of The View this week, things have been relatively calm, despite her public warning to the others that she wouldn’t be holding back when she joined the show. That all changed on Thursday (February 19), though, when the subject of Donald Trump being accused of racism came up.
The first “Hot Topic” of the day was, once again, about the Jeffrey Epstein files fallout — particularly, that Prince Andrew was arrested on charges related to his affiliation with the convicted child sex trafficker. As some of the cohosts complained that Trump, who was mentioned in the files thousands of times and reportedly had a long history of dealings with Epstein, was not subject to the same treatment in the U.S., Chrisley remained silent.
She jumped to his defense, though, after the panelists questioned his claim that he is not a racist.
Whoopi Goldberg started the segment by pointing out that Trump’s administration has been ordered by a court to restore the slave exhibit it had removed in Philadelphia before playing a clip of Trump pointing to his relationships with Rev. Jesse Jackson and Nicki Minaj as evidence he was not biased against Black people.
“I get the rants I do. I understand them wholeheartedly,” Chrisley said first thing.
“And they made fun of Joe Biden? Hello!” Joy Behar countered.
“Well, I think, when it comes to the event that happened yesterday, what’s so hard for me to witness is people stating that the president is a racist,” Chrisley continued.
“He is a racist,” Sunny Hostin said plainly.
Chrisley then claimed, “He saved one of my best friends’ lives, a Black woman who has been…”
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“So he has a Black friend. He’s a racist,” Hostin insisted.
Goldberg then decided to step in and give some support of Hostin’s position, explaining, “Here’s the problem, Savannah, and … many of us have a different take on it, because when you target DEI programs with executive orders your first week in office, arguing that the policies undermine national unity, when you shared racist posts about the Obamas, when you pursued the death penalty for the Exonerated 5 after you knew they had been exonerated, these are the reasons that his behavior is so hard. And I don’t know whether you know about this, but in the ’70s, he was accused of discriminating against Black tenants because he wouldn’t rent to them.”
“Is that an accusation?” Chrisley asked, before multiple cohosts confirmed it was a court determination, referring to the 1973 federal action against Trump and his father for discrimination in New York.
Sara Haines then pointed to other decisions by the Trump administration that can be called racist: “When you look at like the Pentagon removed web pages honoring Black military figures, people that would fight for this country, come back and …. couldn’t even sit in certain places or drink from certain water fountains, they put their lives on the line. That’s a very sacred group of people to send to war. And then he temporarily removed the Tuskegee Airmen, the information on that.”
Hostin then stepped in and insisted once again, “Donald Trump is a racist. There’s no question, and tell it like it is. The most recent thing that he did by posting on Truth Social the Obamas depicted as apes in The Lion King, where there are no apes in The Lion King. That was a racist act. He tried to blame a staffer. A staffer did not do it.”
“It, in fact, was a staffer,” Chrisley said three times in a row.
However, Hostin then pointed to footage of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt saying anything posted on Truth Social is directly from Trump.
“President Trump is a racist,” Hostin then exclaimed, above Chrisley’s insistence, “He is not.” Hostin continued, “… who put that clip of the Obamas on there.”
Chrisley then tried to point to a policy to support her opinion, saying, “For the first time in history, HBCUs got permanent funding under the Trump administration.”
However, Goldberg shut that down, saying, “The funding was started before.”
When Chrisley then clarified she meant “permanent” funding, Hostin said, “You know when that funding got started Savannah, sweetheart? Before Donald Trump got into office.”
When Behar redirected attention to the racist Obamas depiction, Chrisley conceded, “I agree heartedly that the White House failed when it came to the posting of that video because it is the house of everybody… protect the minority groups that lost friendships and relationships over just standing for President Trump. The White House failed on that.”
Haines then challenged, “If he didn’t post it…”
“He did post it!” Hostin insisted.
“Sunny, give me a minute,” Haines continued. “If I didn’t post, and yet something was so egregious on my account, I would come out publicly and say, ‘Oh my God, that was awful.’ … He refused to apologize, which almost told me more.”
“Who is this staffer?” Behar challenged.
“He has two people who have all the logins,” Chrisley said.
“OK, so have either of those staffers been fired for that terrible post that they allegedly put up?” Hostin asked.
“No, they have not,” Chrisley conceded.
Goldberg then closed the conversation on a peacemaking note by saying, “Look, here’s the thing. This is the good thing about this show. Everybody has an opinion, and we say, ‘I don’t agree. I don’t think this is cool,’ and we can have these conversations, and then we’ll go away and talk about our bra sizes.”
The View, Weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC
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