Topper Toussaint, Daily Mail, December 18, 2014

A screaming match over racism erupted between Whoopi Goldberg and Rosie O’Donnell on Thursday’s episode of The View.

The show’s co-hosts were discussing the news that Barack Obama was mistaken for a valet.

Goldberg dismissed the confusion as one of stupidity, with Americans failing to identify the most important man in the country and the world.

But when O’Donnell suggested racism may have been a key factor in the incident, Goldberg became enraged.

‘You are a white lady telling me what is racist to you,’ she shouted.

O’Donnell hit back in the segment: ‘I’m a gay American whose been called an [expletive].

‘I have a black kid at my house, Whoopi. I have a black kid I raise!’

Goldberg exclaimed: ‘That is not the same thing.’

O’Donnell: ‘You don’t have to be black to know what racism is.’

Goldberg: ‘Yes you do.

‘America is not just a racist country, because there are white people who get it.

‘That is why I will not accept the blanket statement that American is racist.’

The fight comes just a day after the pair exchanged blows during an interview with former supermodel Beverly Johnson, who was on air discussing her claims against Bill Cosby.

The ex-supermodel had reached out to Whoopi privately to share her experience with Cosby after seeing the Oscar winner express endless support for the troubled TV icon on The View.

Goldberg asked Johnson to come on The View to discuss her story with their audience.

The supermodel said she would, but only if she could sit down one-on-one with Goldberg, who passed her desires along to the show’s producers.

‘Producers were willing to do whatever Beverly wanted to get her on the show and agreed to cut out Rosie as well as other co-hosts Rosie Perez and Nicolle Wallace.

‘That infuriated Rosie,’ the source explained.

O’Donnell hit the roof hearing that Johnson would appear on The View only in a sit down with Whoopi.

She felt the move was a ‘slap in the face,’ as she has been very vocal in her support for the victims and belief that Cosby is a rapist.

Her passion for the Cosby story has also created tension with fellow co-host Rosie Perez, as previously reported by Mail Online.

Perez had a major melt down after a hostile, gum-chewing Rosie O treated her with disdain during an on-air segment discussing the rape allegations against Bill Cosby.

Perez had argued that Cosby has been pilloried by social media and that there is no way to prove that the allegations are true. Perez attempted to defend her opinion to O’Donnell but O’Donnell wasn’t having it.

O’Donnell told producers she ‘would not stand for that,’ and escalated her complaint to ABC News, that now oversees The View.

She went to the network level and complained about the decision. After pleading her case, ABC News actually agreed with her and told producers to go back to Beverly and tell her she had to talk to all of the co-hosts,’ the source detailed.