Whoopi Goldberg has long been vocal about her distaste for the events that led to President Joe Biden dropping out of the race for reelection, but on Wednesday morning’s episode of “The View,” she took it straight to the man himself.
The president joined the ABC talk show live on Wednesday morning, marking a huge booking win for the program. As the women took the stage, Whoopi noted that security was very tight while Joy Behar joked that the security pat-down was nice.
When Biden eventually took the stage, the co-hosts largely praised him for his work, as well as his decision to bow out. Of course, host Alyssa Farah Griffin did push for clarity on whether Biden felt his hand was forced into doing so.
Biden insisted it wasn’t, adding that he “never fully believed the assertions that somehow there was this overwhelming reluctance of my running again.” He also added that his relationship with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi — who many say was the biggest voice in pressuring Biden to drop out — is “fine.”
When he finished, Whoopi got very honest about the events that led to it.
“Listen, I didn’t like the way they did it. I’m going to just say it out loud, because nobody says it out loud,” she said bluntly. “I didn’t like the way it was done publicly. I thought they could have done this in a different way, because we didn’t need to hear all the inner fighting. I didn’t like it.”
For his part, President Biden stayed silent as she spoke.
“I’m saying it to you. You were my ride or die. I was going where — wherever you were going, that’s what I was doing,” Whoopi continued. “I just wanted to say that, because I always felt you were going to probably do four years, and then try to figure out where to go with Kamala [Harris]. Then he just wouldn’t — he was like a bug! He just kept being there, he was like a bug right there, bzzz.”
At that, Biden mimed swatting a bug on the table.
You can watch the full exchange from “The View” in the video above.
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET. You can watch full episodes on YouTube later that day.