ABC’s “The View” issued an apology Wednesday for comments linking Turning Point USA with neo-Nazi protesters who showed up outside the conservative group’s weekend summit.
Co-host Sara Haines read a statement at the start of the program apologizing for remarks made during Monday’s show, which prompted Turning Point USA (TPUSA) to send a cease-and-desist letter giving ABC News until Wednesday to retract the comments, according to Fox News Digital.
“On Monday, we talked about the fact that there were openly neo-Nazi demonstrators outside the Florida Student Action Summit of the Turning Point USA group,” said Ms. Haines. “We want to make clear that these demonstrators were gathered outside the event and that they were not invited or endorsed by Turning Point USA.”
She continued: “A Turning Point USA spokesman said the group ’100% condemns those ideologies,’ and that Turning Point USA security tried to remove the neo-Nazis from the area, but could not because they were on public property. Also Turning Point USA wanted to clarify — wanted us to clarify that this was a Turning Point USA summit and not a Republican Party event. So we apologize for anything we said that may have been unclear on these points.”
TPUSA threatened legal action after co-hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg weighed in on the neo-Nazi protesters who showed up outside the event in Tampa, Florida.
Ms. Behar said that “neo-Nazis were out there in front of the conference with anti-Semitic slurs and, you know, the Nazi swastika, and a picture of a so-called Jewish person with exaggerated features, just like Goebbels did during the Third Reich.”
She added: “It’s the same thing, right out of that same playbook.”
Later in the show, Ms. Haines read a legal note from TPUSA saying that it condemned the protesters and that they had “nothing to do with the organization.”
Ms. Goldberg responded: “But you let them in. You let them in and you knew what they were. So you are complicit.”
Ms. Goldberg later said: “I want to make a quick clarification about the neo-Nazis at the Turning Point event. They were outside protesters. My point was more metaphorical, that you embraced them at your thing, I felt. They were not in the building. I know they were not in the building, but they were in the mix of people at the thing.”
UPDATE: The View has issued yet another formal correction to TPUSA and its students LIVE on air. The apology was issued by Sara Haines. Whoopi remained silent and has not retracted her comments that TPUSA “metaphorically” embraced “Nazis.” https://t.co/rcTawUTbpX pic.twitter.com/rANUlmXZwO
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) July 27, 2022
After Wednesday’s apology, TPUSA responded by saying that Ms. Goldberg has yet to retract her statement.
“UPDATE: The View has issued yet another formal correction to TPUSA and its students LIVE on air,” TPUSA tweeted.” The apology was issued by Sara Haines. Whoopi remained silent and has not retracted her comments that TPUSA ’metaphorically’ embraced ’Nazis.’”
Ms. Behar also blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who spoke at the event, saying “DeSantis did not say anything about it, nothing.” The governor spoke on Friday, the day before the neo-Nazi group appeared.
The summit held July 22-24 at the Tampa Convention Center featured a host of young conservative personalities.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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