Whoopi Goldberg blamed “leadership” in the U.S. for the fact that Americans are “stuck” in their homes as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

Goldberg spoke remotely via Skype with the co-hosts of ABC’s “The View” on Friday, apparently suggesting that President Donald Trump was to blame for the unprecedented effect of the pandemic on self-isolating Americans who have been forced to stay home.



(Source: ABC “The View”)

Co-host Sunny Hostin continued her ongoing criticism of the president by repeating the false claim that he called the coronavirus a “hoax,” an allegation the president has denied and that anyone who listened to his actual remarks would agree.

“Is this a hoax? Is this a hoax? Are people dying from a hoax?” she asked as the women went on a drawn-out discussion on the dangers of “people only listening to Fox News” and not taking the coronavirus threat seriously at first, naming several Fox News personalities.

“I just think there are unfortunately a bunch of people in this country who have such a distrust of our media and our institutions that they choose only to listen to one network or another, and I think has done a real disservice,” co-host Meghan McCain said.

“[Americans] listened to the president, who called it a hoax,” Hostin claimed. “There are lives at stake,”

Actually, Trump had accused Democrats of politicizing the coronavirus outbreak and using it, like the previous hoaxes of Russian collusion and then the impeachment efforts against him, to weaponize the health emergency against his administration.

Trump boasts swift action against coronavirus, blasts Pelosi for politicizing and ‘trying to create panic’ https://t.co/b0egrTxfM8 — Conservative News (@BIZPACReview) February 27, 2020

“The interesting thing about all of this is whatever channel you’re watching, you’re still watching from home,” Goldberg said following Hostin’s claims.

“You’re watching from inside your house. Because a pandemic has happened, and you are stuck,” she continued, “and whatever side you’re on, you understand that when you have leadership you would not be — you would not be stuck in your house.”

Trump called Democrats’ criticism of his administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak their “new hoax” during a campaign rally in South Carolina in February before any deaths began to occur in the U.S.

“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it,” he said.

“One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in.’ It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning,” Trump told the crowd. “Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”

Liberal media outlets and personalities quickly began to spin the narrative that Trump had called the outbreak a “hoax,” tweeting the false claim and running stories with headlines declaring the misrepresented quote which the president has repeatedly defended as his attack on Democrats’ attempts to blast his response “because we’ve done such a good job.”

“‘Hoax’ referring to the action that [Democrats] take to try and pin this on somebody because we’ve done such a good job. The hoax is on them, not — I’m not talking about what’s happening here [the virus]; I’m talking what they’re doing,” Trump said at a February 29 news conference. “That’s the hoax… But the way they refer to it — because these people have done such an incredible job, and I don’t like it when they are criticizing these people. And that’s the hoax. That’s what I’m talking about.”

Clips from the rally and Trump’s remarks on the coronavirus outbreak were manipulated in an ad by Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign and called out by The Washington Post, which gave it four Pinocchios – its highest rating – for its deceptiveness.

“Ultimately, the seriousness of the coronavirus outbreak, the fact that Trump had clarified his comments on the matter before the ad was released, and the blatant way the Biden camp isolated his remarks about the American Dream pushed us to Four Pinocchios,” the newspaper wrote. “Campaigns must be willing to make their case without resorting to video manipulation.”