Latest news with #AlyssaFarahGriffin
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Sonny Hostin shares fresh insights from Kamala Harris interview
By Sonny Hostin said she feels 'terrible' that she 'took down the Democratic Party' by asking Kamala Harris to name what she would have done different to Joe Biden in the White House. Harris infamously told the liberal gabfest that there was nothing she would change from how her boss governed. 'There is not a thing that comes to mind,' Harris said. Harris justified her reason for keeping to Biden's record by noting: 'I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.' Speaking to the show's producer Brian Teta on its 'Behind the Table' podcast, Hostin claimed she was right to ask the question but hated the impact it had on the election. Teta asked if she expected it to become a viral moment, to which Hostin answered: 'I knew it instantly when she answered it.' The left-leaning host admitted she desperately flailed to try and save Harris with another question on the subject. 'Which is why I asked the follow-up question, 'is there one thing?' Because I knew, I could see the soundbite and I knew what was going to happen, but I thought it was a really fair question and I thought it was a question that she would expect.' Hostin, who was openly rooting for Harris, felt even worse when she learned the anecdote ended up in Jake Tapper's bombshell book about the cover-up of Biden's senility. 'And now Jake Tapper wrote it in his book? I feel terrible.' Hostin refused to say it cost Harris the election but Alyssa Farah Griffin, one of the show's conservative panelists, disagreed. 'The Trump campaign put so much ad money behind that specific clip and what they were trying to do is tie her to Biden's unfavorabilities, but more than that, just simply the right-track, wrong-track of the election… They used it to say, Well, she's not going to do anything different,' Griffin said. Appearing on the popular daytime show just a month before the elections during her truncated campaign, Harris was unsteady in several of her media appearances. Her comments were made to the hosts of ABC's The View when she appeared on the show in October for a softball interview where she was fawned over. Whoopi Goldberg introduced her as 'the next president of the United States.' The Democratic nominee was just as friendly, posing for pictures with the hosts during commercial breaks. On the view, her advisor Stephanie Cutter was floored when Harris got asked if there was anything she would have done differently than Biden. 'What the hell was that?' Cutter said she thought at the time. 'That's not what we practiced.' Her response was also chronicled in the new book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, by reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. It also tells of other key moments, like a 'cringe' video clip where Harris had to feign surprise at picking up the endorsement of Barack and Michelle Obama. Failing to identify a single issue where she parted with Biden yoked her even more to the president, who had bowed out after his debate disaster but was also unpopular in opinion polls going back years. It denied her the opportunity to hold up a policy difference that might define her as something different beyond being a younger alternative. 'It provided the money shot' for negative ads that would tie link Harris and Biden. 'And it was her own bad moment. When she gave us the gift of the View interview, we were able to anchor her to the Biden administration in her own words, which is something we were trying to do anyway,' a Trump advisor told the authors. Donald Trump, Jr. was even more forceful, as reported at the time. 'And just like that, Kamala's entire bull[expletive] campaign about being a 'change agent' collapses. You can't call yourself a change agent when you not only agree with every single disaster Joe Biden is responsible for, but you brag about being involved in all those decisions!,' he wrote on X. Aides had given Harris a list of items that made her 'proud of her work with Biden.'
Telegraph
5 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Come on Whoopi, the US may not be fun but you're hardly in danger of being flogged
Whoopsi Goldberg. When will she learn that acting and activism are two very different skill sets? I'm not sure we want more of the former from her but we want absolutely none of the latter. Her latest toweringly stupid prime-time pronouncement is that for black people, living in the US is as bad as living in Iran. Appearing on The View, a topical panel show, Oscar winner Goldberg was enraged when her co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin stated, perfectly reasonably, 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,' snapped Goldberg, who then proceeded to shout the other woman down, wildly claiming time and again that the prevailing culture in the democratic US is in lockstep with the systematic oppression imposed by the Iranian theocracy. We know you're a lefty. We know you hate Trump. But really? 'Let's just remember, too, the Iranians literally throw gay people off of buildings. They don't adhere to basic human rights,' pointed out Griffin, an Arab-American. This cut no ice with Goldberg, who by now had clambered onto her bandwagon and refused to concede a single point as it would represent an unthinkable climbdown. 'Let's not do that,' she countered crossly, 'because if we start with that, we have been known in this country to tie gay folks to the car.' Her false equivalence was as ugly as it was ignorant. Call me a bigot, but conflating state-sanctioned execution with illegal acts of murderous criminality is mortifying, stupid and dangerous. In a new report presented to the Geneva-based Human Rights Council on Wednesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Iran was executing people at 'an alarming rate'. At least 975 people received capital punishment in 2024, an increase on the estimated 834 in 2023 and the highest rate of executions since 2015. Flogging, torture and amputation are accepted forms of punishment in a country where the security forces act with impunity and women are 'disappeared' for refusing to wear the 'correct' veil. But Goldberg, who is worth an estimated £45 million, appeared to have no intention of listening – or allowing the audience to hear – any point of view other than her own. Even when Griffin pointed to the actress's clothing and argued that in Iran she wouldn't be allowed to walk around with her hair and legs showing, Goldberg predictably dragged the debate – such as it was – back to her specialist subject of race relations in the US. A worthy topic – but this was a programme focusing on Iran. 'Nobody wants to diminish the very real problems we have in our country,' responded Griffin carefully (to her credit, she didn't just reach over and turn off Goldberg's mic). 'But there are places far darker than our country.' She's right. But Goldberg wasn't interested. Her empathy doesn't appear to extend beyond her home turf. Or beyond colour. In 2022, she was suspended from the selfsame show for 'wrong and hurtful comments' after she asserted the annihilation of six million Jews in the Holocaust wasn't about race because 'these are two white groups of people'. Wow. You'd think Goldberg might have learnt something – anything. But no. She inhabits a myopic world of privilege in which her opinions are the only opinions – and if you're not with her, you are against her. The sorry truth is that now Hollywood no longer comes calling, she's plying her trade as a TV loudmouth. She doesn't need the money, but she clearly craves the attention – a deluded egotistical actress clinging to the excruciating belief that she's still the star of the show.
Daily Mail
13 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
The View host reveals wild new details about Kamala Harris interview that 'took down the Democratic Party'
Sonny Hostin said she feels 'terrible' that she 'took down the Democratic Party ' by asking Kamala Harris to name what she would have done different to Joe Biden in the White House. Harris infamously told the liberal gabfest that there was nothing she would change from how her boss governed. 'There is not a thing that comes to mind,' Harris said. Harris justified her reason for keeping to Biden's record by noting: 'I've been a part of most of the decisions that have had impact.' Speaking to the show's producer Brian Teta on its 'Behind the Table' podcast, Hostin claimed she was right to ask the question but hated the impact it had on the election. Teta asked if she expected it to become a viral moment, to which Hostin answered: 'I knew it instantly when she answered it.' The left-leaning host admitted she desperately flailed to try and save Harris with another question on the subject. 'Which is why I asked the follow-up question, 'is there one thing?' Because I knew, I could see the soundbite and I knew what was going to happen, but I thought it was a really fair question and I thought it was a question that she would expect.' Hostin, who was openly rooting for Harris, felt even worse when she learned the anecdote ended up in Jake Tapper's bombshell book about the cover-up of Biden's senility. 'And now Jake Tapper wrote it in his book? I feel terrible.' Hostin refused to say it cost Harris the election but Alyssa Farah Griffin, one of the show's conservative panelists, disagreed. 'The Trump campaign put so much ad money behind that specific clip and what they were trying to do is tie her to Biden's unfavorabilities, but more than that, just simply the right-track, wrong-track of the election… They used it to say, 'Well, she's not going to do anything different,'' Griffin said. Appearing on the popular daytime show just a month before the elections during her truncated campaign, Harris was unsteady in several of her media appearances. Her comments were made to the hosts of ABC's The View when she appeared on the show in October for a softball interview where she was fawned over. Whoopi Goldberg introduced her as 'the next president of the United States.' The Democratic nominee was just as friendly, posing for pictures with the hosts during commercial breaks. On the view, her advisor Stephanie Cutter was floored when Harris got asked if there was anything she would have done differently than Biden. 'What the hell was that?' Cutter said she thought at the time. 'That's not what we practiced.' Her response was also chronicled in the new book Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House, by reporters Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes. It also tells of other key moments, like a 'cringe' video clip where Harris had to feign surprise at picking up the endorsement of Barack and Michelle Obama. Failing to identify a single issue where she parted with Biden yoked her even more to the president, who had bowed out after his debate disaster but was also unpopular in opinion polls going back years. It denied her the opportunity to hold up a policy difference that might define her as something different beyond being a younger alternative. 'It provided the money shot' for negative ads that would tie link Harris and Biden. 'And it was her own bad moment.' 'When she gave us the gift of the View interview, we were able to anchor her to the Biden administration in her own words, which is something we were trying to do anyway,' a Trump advisor told the authors. Donald Trump, Jr. was even more forceful, as reported at the time. 'And just like that, Kamala's entire bull**** campaign about being a 'change agent' collapses. You can't call yourself a change agent when you not only agree with every single disaster Joe Biden is responsible for, but you brag about being involved in all those decisions!,' he wrote on X. Aides had given Harris a list of items that made her 'proud of her work with Biden.' It came as party leaders were in a bind, feeling the need to build up Biden for having relinquish power, even while racing to build up Harris's bio for her run on her own after a brief and unsuccessful primary campaign in 2020.
New York Post
15 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Post
Whoopi Goldberg's claim that Iran and America are ‘the same' is offensive to Iranians suffering and dying — like my family
On Wednesday's 'The View,' Whoopi Goldberg said Iran and America are 'the same.' In a heated exchange, Alyssa Farah Griffin disagreed, at one point saying, 'It's very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is to live in Iran.' Whoopi retorted, 'Not if you're black!' Here, an Iranian who fled the country and lives in America responds. There is absolutely no comparison between life in the United States and life under the Islamic Republic of Iran. The worst situation of any American citizen — regardless of race, gender or background — is still infinitely better than the daily fear, oppression and brutality people endure in Iran. I lived there. I know the fear firsthand. I've seen it. Advertisement In Iran, you're constantly watched. You can be arrested for a word, for a haircut, for listening to the wrong music, for refusing to conform. They torture people. They execute dissidents. They even assassinate critics abroad. So to hear someone on American TV, with total freedom of speech and legal protection, equate the United States with Iran is not only factually wrong — it's offensive to those who are truly suffering and dying in silence. 4 Whoopi Goldberg (left) sparred with Alyssa Farah Griffin (right) on Wednesday's episode of 'The View.' ABC Advertisement In America, you can protest, sue, criticize the president and still go home safely at night. In Iran, that same act could get you killed. So no — they are not the same. Not even close. Daily life in Iran is a prison — just not always with visible bars. Every detail of your life is controlled: what you wear, what you say, who you associate with, what music you listen to, what you post online. You're constantly afraid. Your phone is tapped. You speak in whispers. You look over your shoulder. Every sentence can be used against you. Advertisement Women are beaten and arrested for how they dress. Students are tortured for speaking out. There is no due process, no transparency, no protection. They can arrest you without reason, torture you without trial, and your family may never know where you are. They force televised confessions, and then they hang people — publicly. 4 The author, Majid Rafizadeh, speaks out about the Iranian regime — despite threats to him and his family. Courtesy of Majid Rafizadeh Advertisement I've had family members tortured, detained. Some never came back. So again, this is not something people in America, even in the worst circumstances, can fully grasp. It's not struggle — it's terror. Iranians would generally rather be in the United States a thousand times over, even on its worst day. An Iranian would dream of having the problems Americans complain about. In the United States, you have the right to speak, to challenge authority, to protest, to live your life. In Iran, you have no such rights. You're not even a person in the eyes of the regime. You're property. And if you step out of line, they break you — and your family. Here in America, even if someone disagrees with you, you still have the freedom to speak, to work, to achieve. People of all races have become billionaires, senators, even president. 4 Massive crowds make their way to the 2022 funeral of Mahsa Amini, who was murdered by Iranian officials for the way she wore her hijab. UGC/AFP via Getty Images So when someone in the West claims to be a victim while having access to courts, media, education and full legal protections, it feels like drama. It feels manufactured. Because in Iran, you're not a victim — you're a hostage. Advertisement Every single person in Iran knows someone who has been arrested, tortured or killed by the regime. It is not an exaggeration. It's reality. Political imprisonment is so widespread that it touches every family. My own family has lived through this nightmare. They tortured my father. They monitored us. They interrogated relatives. And these stories never make the news — because they don't allow journalists, they don't allow truth. People disappear. Mothers never find their children. Executions happen without trials. Advertisement It's not a government — it's a mafia that rules through fear, pain and violence. Everyone knows someone. Everyone lives in fear that he or she might be next. 4 Iranian dissidents are executed in public — sending a lesson to the rest of the suffering population. AP I left Iran because of the oppression, the fear and the constant threat to my life and to my family. We were being watched. My father was tortured. My relatives were interrogated. And I knew that if I stayed, I could disappear like so many others. Advertisement I still have family there — and they are constantly targeted. They are harassed, intimidated and punished, simply because I speak out. My elderly mother, who can barely walk, has been threatened. They want to instill fear — to silence me. Most likely, they do it to stop me from writing and exposing the regime. And yes, I carry guilt every day because of that. I feel responsible for the pain they endure. But I also know that silence helps the oppressor. I have to speak up. I have to write. Advertisement I have to expose the truth — even if it costs me everything. Even if it costs me my life. Because what they are doing to the people of Iran is not just wrong — it is evil. Majid Rafizadeh is a political scientist and advisory board member of the Harvard International Review.
Telegraph
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Whoopi Goldberg epitomises the stupidity of the modern progressive mind
Actor and daytime talk-show host Whoopi Goldberg has always been one of America's great provocateurs. But this week she traded provocation for plain old stupidity. Or at least a deep indifference to logic and truth. On Wednesday, Goldberg was on The View, the mid-morning daily television programme she has co-hosted for years. This time the discussion centred on Iran, its war with Israel and the potential for US intervention. Goldberg's co-host, Alyssa Farah Griffin – who is both Arab-American and politically conservative – made what ought to have been a statement of the obvious: that Iranians live under extreme tyranny and repression, lacking basic freedoms, including over what they can wear. And when they have protested the oppression they must endure, they have faced violence – or, in the case of Mahsa Amini, even death. 'The Iranians literally throw gay people off of buildings,' noted Farah. But Goldberg found it impossible to accept such a clear-sighted condemnation of a reprehensible theocratic regime. 'Let's not do that,' she countered. 'We have been known in this country to tie gay folks to the car.' And her odious descent into compare and contrast moral relativism was just getting started. Griffin tried to push back. 'I think it's very different to live in the United States in 2025 than it is to live in Iran,' she said quite reasonably. 'Not if you're black,' Goldberg retorted. No American could possibly pretend that their country is perfect, and it's impossible to ignore that many groups – my fellow African-Americans among them – still face serious challenges. But does Goldberg really think that things are as bad on the streets of the US as they are on the streets of Tehran, under an Islamist theocracy? Evidently, yes. It's easy to blast Goldberg's political and intellectual myopia, but in many ways she's not to blame. Her moral relativism merely reflects the way in which identity politics has so corrupted Western minds that problems in our own societies are weaponised in order to shut down criticism of even the most appalling totalitarian regimes. It's the same thinking that has fuelled so much progressive activism since Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7. Who are we, they chortle, to criticise Hamas or the Ayatollahs when the US remains a nation still mired in injustice and inequality? But there are vast differences between the 'regimes' in Washington and Tehran – including for African-Americans. They're so basic – free speech, the rule of law, freedom to protest, gay marriage – that it's almost comical to have to repeat them. There is no freedom of expression in Iran, no independent media or women's movement, no protection whatsoever for any of Iran's minority groups (or indeed for anyone at all). But there's nothing comical about Goldberg's world view. Nearly 350 Iranians were executed by the state in the first four months of 2025 alone – a 75 per cent increase over 2024, according to a report from Iran Human Rights. And guess what, Goldberg? Political prisoners and minorities were heavily represented within these figures – none of whom have the luxury of a daily talk show from which to demand justice. Because justice is non-existent in places like Iran and Gaza. The likes of Goldberg might point to the killing of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin as evidence that the US is a similarly arbitrary and unjust society. The difference is that Chauvin sits in jail for killing Floyd, tried amid a media frenzy by both a jury and public opinion. Mahsa Amini knew no such privilege when she was killed under police detention in 2022 for supposedly failing to adhere to Iran's strict dress codes for women. Goldberg's juvenile thinking – her belief that an America that allows her to pontificate on national television – is somehow as repressive as Iran stains the legacy of true heroes like Amini. Goldberg also undermines the very real need for continued reform in the US by insisting that we have as much catching up to do as the Iranians. I'd almost suggest that she should take a trip to Tehran, to see for herself whether her risible comparison between Iranian tyranny and American freedom really stacks up. Judging by the wilful blindness of modern progressives, however, even seeing the horror of life under the ayatollahs up close would be unlikely to change her mind.
