Fighting on The View is the daily norm. But between Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg? That’s unheard of. The two women, who have similar, liberal political leanings, tend to agree with each other on most Hot Topics. That wasn’t the case on the February 1 episode of the talk show. The tense moment occurred during a discussion about Senator Joe Manchin‘s problem with Vice President Kamala Harris not telling him before appearing on a local West Virginia news station to talk about the COVID-19 stimulus package.
MANCHIN SLAMS VP FOR PRESSURING SENATE: After Vice. Pres. Kamala Harris interviewed with a local West Virginia TV station to discuss the new COVID-19 stimulus package, Sen. Joe Manchin took issue over not receiving notice of her appearance – the co-hosts weigh in. pic.twitter.com/R0ohh8HIGh
— The View (@TheView) February 1, 2021
“Let me just point this out,” Whoopi said. “Joe, she is the vice president, she does not work for you, she doesn’t need your permission to go do this. When you talk like that, it sounds a little bigoted, like you think you have the right to tell her when she can and cannot come someplace.” Joy vehemently disagreed, much to everyone’s shock — especially Whoopi’s. The EGOT winner literally did a double take, which you can see at the 2:20 minute mark in the video above.
“Well, you know, Joe Manchin is a Democrat, but he swings to the right,” Joy explained. “At this moment in time, the Democrats need Joe Manchin more than Joe Manchin needs the Democrats because he will always win in West Virginia taking middle of the road positions. He’s got an ego problem, I’ll grant you that. But the guy voted for impeachment, he voted for the ACA, he’s on the Democratic team — so I don’t think it’s a great idea alienating Joe Manchin, no matter how big his ego is.”
Cue a polite, but very terse back and forth between the former allies. “I’m sorry, do you think she needed to speak to him before she went and gave this interview?” Whoopi asked. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the protocol — probably not,” Joy replied. Whoopi eventually cut her off after they continued to fight and went straight to Meghan McCain, who famously disagrees with Joy on just about everything.
Hell must have frozen over, because Meghan was firmly on Team Joy this time, just weeks after their “I didn’t miss you” spat. “I completely agree with Joy,” she simply said. “I think there are protocols when you visit someone’s home state. Yes, she is the vice president but he’s still representing West Virginia.” The fight between Whoopi and Joy comes shortly after Joy appeared on Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen and explained why she hates filming The View from home.
“I don’t like this format, I think it’s very restrictive and hard to do. But it’s what we have at the moment,” Joy said. “You know, it’s not really easy to do the show when I’m sitting in a room in my house, and I can’t have a conversation with anybody because they can’t hear me… It’s not the usual kind of show that it used to be, where you had bantering going on.”