
Whoopi Goldberg shocks The View panel by claiming living in US as a black person is as bad as living in Iran
Whoopi Goldberg sparked a furious clash on The View after claiming that black people in the US are just as oppressed as people living under the Iranian regime.
The panelist, who has a net worth of $60 million, flew into a rage when co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin argued that, 'it's very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is to live in Iran.'
'Not if you're black,' Goldberg responded.
The View panelists' back and forth came as they discussed President Donald Trump 's threat to Iranian leader Ali Khamenei as an 'easy target', opening a debate over how involved the US should get in the conflict.
'Let's just remember, too, the Iranians literally throw gay people off of buildings. They don't adhere to basic human rights,' Griffin said.
Goldberg responded: 'Let's not do that, because if we start with that, we have been known in this country to tie gay folks to the car.'
The panelists raised their voices as Goldberg repeatedly told Griffin that, 'there's no way I can make you understand it', to which Griffin fired back: 'The Iranian regime today is nothing compared to the United States.'
The hostile exchange came amid rising fears in the US that Trump could plunge into war with Iran, with the country's leader Ali Khamenei sending an ominous warning hours before The View episode that America would face 'irreparable damage' if it joins the conflict.
As Goldberg claimed that black Americans suffer as much as Iranians, The View panelists waded into the possibility of US strikes on Iran as the world waits to see if Trump pulls the trigger.
Host Sunny Hostin appeared to justify Iran's side of the conflict, arguing that the Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites and the assassinations of several top Iranian military leaders was illegal.
She said she disagreed with Trump branding Khamenei an 'easy target', saying: 'We really need to have a bird's eye view of what's going on. If that's OK for Israel to do, if that's OK for our president to do. Is that OK for another country to do to us?'
Joy Behar added: 'Well, think of it this way, what if Canada was saying was going to build a nuclear bomb and they threatened to kill us all? What would we do?'
Hostin responded: 'You have to do it diplomatically, Joy.'
Behar said: 'Really? What's so diplomatic about having a nuclear bomb and threatening another country?'
The View's take on the conflict comes as many of the president's diehard MAGA supporters have urged him not to enter the conflict and follow through with his isolationist platform that got him elected.
On Wednesday, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson released bombshell interview clips where Texas Senator Ted Cruz appeared to admit U.S. is already actively engaged against Iranian targets.
'You said Israel was,' Carlson said, to which Cruz responded: 'I've said "we." Israel is leading them, but we're supporting them.'
'You're breaking news here,' Carlson responded. 'The U.S. government last night denied... on behalf of Trump, that we're acting on Israel's behalf in any offensive capacity.'
Earlier this week, both Carlson and Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon said on their podcasts that striking Iran would put the US on a disastrous path forward.
They blamed the 'deep state' in the intelligence agencies and war hawk Republicans for swaying Trump to support Israel's military strikes on Iran.
And they warned the president faced the 'end of his presidency' if he got America embroiled into another lengthy war in the Middle East.
The president bristled at Carlson's criticism, dismissing his comments at the G7.
'I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying, let him go get a television network and say it so the people listen,' Trump said.
Shortly afterward, the president fired back at Carlson on social media.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Telegraph
10 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trump deploys B-2 stealth bombers as he considers striking Iran
US B-2 stealth bombers have been moved to the American military base in Guam, as Donald Trump prepared to meet with his national security team and discuss whether to join Israel's attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. As many as four B-2 stealth bombers took off from the Whiteman Air Force base in Missouri on Saturday, heading towards the US naval station in the Pacific. The B-2 is designed for long-range missions and is the only aircraft capable of delivering the 30,000-lb 'Massive Ordnance Penetrator' precision-guided bunker busters that could be used to destroy Iran's underground nuclear plant at Fordow. The US president was expected to call a national security meeting on Saturday night as he decides whether or not to join the conflict. The relocation of the B-2 stealth bombers, which puts them in striking distance of Iran with the support of refuelling tankers, appears to be a clear demonstration of US military might as it ramps up pressure on Iran to strike a nuclear deal. From Guam, they could fly to the US base on Diego Garcia, in the Chagos Islands, which is within striking distance of Iran. The movements come amid reports that the US president tried to arrange a meeting with Iranian officials but couldn't get through to Ayatollah Khamenei, the country's supreme leader. Mr Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, quietly sought to organise face-to-face talks with Iranian officials in Istanbul this week, but efforts collapsed when Khamenei, who is in hiding, could not be reached, three US officials told Axios. The backchannel effort reveals the extent the US president was willing to go to seek a diplomatic solution with Iran and avoid US military intervention. On Saturday, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, vowed that Europe would step up its diplomatic efforts, a day after Mr Trump dismissed European efforts to end the war between Iran and Israel. After speaking with Masoud Pezeshkian, the Iranian president, Mr Macron wrote on X: 'I am convinced that a path exists to end war and avoid even greater dangers. 'To achieve this, we will accelerate the negotiations led by France and its European partners with Iran.' 'Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons,' he added. 'It is up to Iran to provide full guarantees that its intentions are peaceful.' His comments followed criticism from Mr Trump, who dismissed the role of European partners in brokering a ceasefire after Friday's talks with top Iranian officials ended with no breakthrough. Mr Trump told reporters: 'Iran doesn't want to speak to Europe. They want to speak to us.' Iran and Israel continued to trade missile barrages on Saturday, with a senior Israeli military official saying that IDF strikes would continue for 'as long as possible' and anyone saying otherwise was making 'empty promises'. Israeli government officials had originally publicised a 'two-week' time frame for the campaign, saying its objectives could be met in that period. Overnight on Friday, 50 Israeli jets hit targets across Iran with 150 munitions, killing three senior Iranian military commanders, including the new commander of its drone force. The three senior Iranian commanders killed were named by the IDF as Saeed Izadi, head of the Palestinian Division in the IRGC Quds Force, Behnam Shahriyari, head of the Quds Force's Unit 190, and Aminpour Joudaki, head of the IRGC Aerospace Force's drone unit. Izadi had been killed 'hiding' in a location that was not his home, indicating the power of Israel's intelligence, said the IDF. Israel also hit the Isfahan nuclear site in Iran for the second time, further degrading its capacity to manufacture the centrifuges required to produce weapons-grade uranium. A senior military official said Israel had dealt a 'severe blow to centrifuge production' in Iran and had taken out '50 per cent or more' of its ballistic missile launchers. They added that missile launchers were a 'bottleneck' for Iran, with the country having many more missiles than launchers. Israeli officials trumpeted the success of their air strikes, claiming they had set back Tehran's development of nuclear weapons by 'years'. 'According to the assessment we hear, we already delayed for at least two or three years the possibility for them to have a nuclear bomb,' Gideon Saar, Israel's foreign minister, said in an interview with Bild on Saturday. Streaks of smoke were also visible in the sky over Tel Aviv on Saturday as Israel's air defence responded to a fresh onslaught of projectiles from Tehran. During the barrage, an Iranian drone hit a home in Israel's Beit She'an valley region, marking the first time a drone has hit a residential area in Israel since the conflict began on June 13. In a message to American officials, Iran's top diplomat warned that it would be 'very dangerous for everybody' if the US were to join Israel's strikes. Speaking on his way back from talks in Geneva, Abbas Araghchi, Iran's foreign minister, said: 'Unfortunately, we have heard that the US may join this aggression. 'That would be very unfortunate and very, very dangerous for everybody.' The Islamic Republic has so far ruled out further nuclear talks with the US until Israel halts its attacks. In a sign of how precarious the current conflict has left the Iranian regime, the supreme leader is said to have named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, according to The New York Times. Buried 300ft inside a mountain, the Fordow enrichment plant is one of three key pieces of nuclear infrastructure in Iran, alongside the Natanz enrichment plant and research facilities in Isfahan. If the US were to launch a strike on the nuclear plant from Diego Garcia, it would need permission from the UK, which maintains sovereignty over the islands. On Thursday, Mr Trump said that the decision on whether to strike Iran would be made 'in the next two weeks'.


The Independent
39 minutes ago
- The Independent
Israeli-backed group seeks at least $30 million from US for aid distribution in Gaza
A U.S.-led group has asked the Trump administration to step in with an initial $30 million so it can continue its much scrutinized and Israeli-backed aid distribution in Gaza, according to three U.S. officials and the organization's application for the money. That application, obtained by The Associated Press, also offers some of the first financial details about the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and its work in the territory. The foundation says it has provided millions of meals in southern Gaza since late May to Palestinians as Israel's blockade and military campaign have driven the Gaza to the brink of famine. But the effort has seen near-daily fatal shootings of Palestinians trying to reach the distribution sites. Major humanitarian groups also accuse the foundation of cooperating with Israel's objectives in the 20-month-old war against Hamas in a way that violates humanitarian principles. The group's funding application was submitted to the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to the U.S. officials, who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. The application was being processed this week as potentially one of the agency's last acts before the Republican administration absorbs USAID into the State Department as part of deep cuts in foreign assistance. Two of the officials said they were told the administration has decided to award the money. They said the processing was moving forward with little of the review and auditing normally required before Washington makes foreign assistance grants to an organization. In a letter submitted Thursday as part of the application, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation secretary Loik Henderson said his organization 'was grateful for the opportunity to partner with you to sustain and scale life-saving operations in Gaza.' Neither the State Department nor Henderson immediately responded to requests for comment Saturday. Israel says the foundation is the linchpin of a new aid system to wrest control from the United Nations, which Israel alleges has been infiltrated by Hamas, and other humanitarian groups. The foundation's use of fixed sites in southern Gaza is in line with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to use aid to concentrate the territory's more than 2 million people in the south, freeing Israel to fight Hamas elsewhere. Aid workers fear it's a step toward another of Netanyahu's public goals, removing Palestinians from Gaza in 'voluntary' migrations that aid groups and human rights organizations say would amount to coerced departures. The U.N. and many leading nonprofit groups accuse the foundation of stepping into aid distribution with little transparency or humanitarian experience, and, crucially, without a commitment to the principles of neutrality and operational independence in war zones. Since the organization started operations, several hundred Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded in near-daily shootings as they tried to reach aid sites, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Witnesses say Israeli troops regularly fire heavy barrages toward the crowds in an attempt to control them. The Israeli military has denied firing on civilians. It says it fired warning shots in several instance, and fired directly at a few 'suspects' who ignored warnings and approached its forces. It's unclear who is funding the new operation in Gaza. No donor has come forward. The State Department said this past week that the United States is not funding it. In documents supporting its application, the group said it received nearly $119 million for May operations from 'other government donors,' but gives no details. It expects $38 million from those unspecific government donors for June, in addition to the hoped-for $30 million from the United States. The application shows no funding from private philanthropy or any other source.


The Independent
44 minutes ago
- The Independent
AOC blasts Trump's ‘illegal' persecution of Mahmoud Khalil as she welcomes Columbia student back to NYC
Standing beside a recently released Mahmoud Khalil, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez condemned Donald Trump's administration for the 'illegal' persecution of the Columbia University student, who was imprisoned for more than three months in an immigration detention center for his pro-Palestinian activism. The New York congresswoman joined Khalil and his family at Newark Liberty International Airport Saturday for a press conference moments after his return. 'Because Mahmoud Khalil is an advocate for Palestinian human rights, he has been accused, baselessly, of horrific allegations simply because the Trump administration and our overall establishment disagrees with his political speech,' she said. Khalil was stripped of his green card and arrested in front of his then-pregnant wife in their New York City apartment building on March 8. He was then sent to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Louisiana, where he was kept for months and forced to miss the birth of his child. On Friday, a federal judge granted his release from ICE detention on bail while legal challenges against his arrest and threat of removal from the country continue in both federal and immigration courts. 'It is wrong, it is illegal, it is a violation of his First Amendment rights, it is an affront to every American and ... we will continue to resist the politicization and the continued political persecution that ICE is engaged in,' Ocasio-Cortez said. 'Everyone agrees that the persecution based on political speech is wrong and is a violation of all of our First Amendment rights, not just Mahmoud's,' she added. Khalil, who is Palestinian, grew up in a refugee camp in Syria. He entered the United States on a student visa in 2022 to pursue a master's degree in public administration and emerged as a face of Columbia demonstrations against Israel's war in Gaza. Trump administration officials have accused Khalil of 'antisemitic activities,' allegations Khalil and his legal team have flatly denied. 'The U.S. government is funding this genocide, and Columbia University is investing in this genocide,' he told reporters at Newark. 'This is what I was protesting, this is what I will continue to protest with every one of you, not only if they threaten me with detention, even if they kill me, I will still speak up for Palestine.' Speaking out for Palestinian rights is 'speech that should actually be celebrated rather than punished, as if this administration wants to do,' Khalil said. Officials concede that Khalil did not commit any crime, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sought to justify Khalil's arrest by invoking a rarely used law claiming that Khalil's presence in the United States undermines foreign policy interests to prevent antisemitism. A judge's order for his release is the latest in a string of high-profile legal losses for the Trump administration following the arrests of international scholars for their pro-Palestinian activism. Their arrests sparked widespread outrage against the administration's apparent attempts to crush campus dissent, while Rubio has said he 'proudly' revoked hundreds of student visas over campus activism. The Trump administration 'knows they are waging a losing legal battle' against pro-Palestine students, and are 'violating the law' to build a campaign against them, Ocasio-Cortez said. Lawyers for the Trump administration appealed the order for his release on Friday night. A spokesperson for Homeland Security called the order 'yet another example of how out-of-control members of the judicial branch are undermining national security.'