Joy Behar suggested on Wednesday that she and her co-hosts on “The View” might have given a last-minute assist to Pennsylvania Senator-elect John Fetterman (D) after his race against Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz came down to the wire on Tuesday night.
The ABC midday talk show opened with a clip from Fetterman’s victory speech — in which he announced, “I will be the next U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania” — and while Behar seemed to think that she and her co-hosts might have helped to push Fetterman over the line, co-host Whoopi Goldberg said that all the credit belonged to the voters.
WATCH:
Joy Behar gives The View credit for Fetterman's win and Whoopi claims Americans overcame attempts to "repress the vote."
"People came out from under buildings, they came from helicopters, they landed, they decided." pic.twitter.com/2qPBb5Kkr0— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) November 9, 2022
Goldberg cut away from the clip of Fetterman, pausing while the audience applauded. “Now, given — yeah,” she said, trailing off as people began to cheer.
“I think we helped that one,” Behar said, but Goldberg pushed back.
“Well, I mean, this really comes down to the people,” she said. “This comes down to the people, the people of the United States made their decisions. They decided who they wanted to be in power.”
Goldberg went on to suggest that the American people had come out in force to defeat attempts at voter suppression. “And you know, you can try to repress the vote, but people came out from under buildings, they came from helicopters, they landed, they decided, they voted in huge amounts,” she said. “Never, ever, never give up on the American people when it comes to voting, it might not always go your way, but we will come out and do what we’re supposed to do.”
“The View” hosted Fetterman just days before the election, providing him with a series of softball questions delivered via closed captioning to minimize the impact of his ongoing struggles with auditory processing.
Instead of asking whether they believed he was capable of performing the typical duties of a senator just months after his stroke, they asked whether he’d been “transparent” enough with regard to telling Pennsylvanians how his recovery was going. Co-host Sunny Hostin then set him up with a ready-made attack on Dr. Oz, calling him a “bully” for participating in a debate and claiming that Fetterman had proved his worth as a leader simply by showing up.