Disney CEO Bob Iger allegedly threatened to fire Whoopi Goldberg if she did not tone down her anti-Trump stance on The View, prioritizing advertiser safety over political criticism. While hosts like Ana Navarro resisted this corporate directive, producers considered firing talent to cut costs amid declining streaming subscriptions and FCC scrutiny. This internal conflict highlights Disney's struggle to balance free speech with business pressures, suggesting further layoffs at ABC as the company abandons its previous "woke" model for a more commercially viable approach. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, Qwen/Qwen3-ForcedAligner-0.6B, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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The View's Tone Shift00:10:47
Now you've got this problem in The View.
All right.
So Bob Iger reportedly sat The View ladies down or communicated somehow to their EP rather recently that they needed to change their tone.
Now, this had been going on for a while.
I want to, you know, full disclosure, we talked about it right here on the show, right after the election.
I actually made the observation that somebody was talking to Whoopi Goldberg.
I thought somebody was starting to talk to her because I was starting to hear a different kind of tonality almost.
Sounding like she was going to give the president, dare I say, a chance.
That was Iger apparently telling her, Whoopi, we got to shift.
That was her producers after they fired them all, by the way, saying, we're going to have to shift.
Here's Whoopi making that seemingly MAGA shift.
I think what we're all saying is we're going to sit and watch.
We're going to wait and see because we can't do anything else except I'm not going to wait and see.
I mean, this guy is what are you going to do?
He's a retribution.
What are you going to do?
What are you going to do?
There's nothing to be done until you know what you're fighting.
It's pissing in the wind doesn't help.
You just get a wet face.
What I'm saying is, I have no false expectations that at 78, he's going to all of a sudden turn down into another human being.
And I'm not going to spend years with people too now.
I spent weeks telling people that he was apocalyptic.
I'm not going to change now because it's still the same man.
No, because he's not treating every single thing like that.
I think that's when we lose credibility.
Well, here's the thing you lose credibility in many different ways.
If you don't know what you're talking about and you accuse him of something, then they're going to blow it back.
That's why I say we need to wait and see exactly what you're going to do.
So she knows her job is on the line.
I actually believe her contract was coming up, which is why, remember in the original view that they were putting out for weekends online, she wasn't in it.
I think that was partly contract negotiations.
And then you had the big awards ceremony, right?
The Oscars or whatever you call it.
One of them, you know, I get a little confused, but I think it was the Oscars.
And she got up there to present an award.
I think that was part of the negotiation too, because it was airing on ABC.
She's talking to the bosses behind the scenes and they're saying, you know, you can't go after Trump like that.
It's getting old.
It's getting stale.
The viewers don't want it anymore.
So they sit her down.
They read her the riot act.
They tell all the hosts this because they were going in up front recently.
That's like the big, you know, shindig or the big conference where you have advertisers come in and they're going to buy advertising on a show.
Well, who wants to buy advertising on The View?
Can I ask you?
I mean, that's kind of so they're trying to get them to shift.
They were told, I understand, to actually focus more on entertainment and pop culture.
But apparently some of them, like Ana Navarro, did not want to do it.
And Sonny Houston did not want to do it.
Joy Behar.
I mean, it's like you're seeing their public.
Well, you're seeing their behind the scenes fight out there in public.
So they're having this back and forth with producers.
Producer, the guy who runs the show, you know, is sitting there going, oh, what do I do with these women?
I don't know.
I think you just fire them all and get rid of it.
You start over.
And you know what?
You're going to save a lot of money.
Otherwise, you're just going to keep dealing with this.
And we're having a conversation.
Yes.
And we're going to go back to it.
But before we do, I just want to say this is the beauty of people who have different opinions.
Sometimes it's messy.
Sometimes we're messy.
And I don't know if you noticed that when I came out this morning, I had trouble trying to figure out because there was nothing in the thing.
In the process.
There was something in the air.
So just know something is chewing on Trump.
You know what's in the air, Whoppy?
Trumpism.
We lost the election.
Wait a minute.
We lost the election.
We're miserable.
Half of this country is miserable.
And let's just tell the truth we hate that he won.
We hate it.
Then I'm going to say to that machine over there, you stop blaming me.
Okay, I'm going to jump in.
You see what that's about there?
She's saying, I'm going to stop saying to that machine, the teleprompter, what's in the teleprompter?
What am I supposed to do?
What am I supposed to say?
Because you guys don't want me to be anti-Trump.
So she's trying to, this is after the election, right?
And nobody else on her team is willing to follow her leadership, even though the bosses are telling her, you can't be this anti-Trump.
I mean, for one thing, we got Brendan Garr, the SEC director, breathing down our back.
They're suing us for DEI stuff, violation of the Constitution.
We may not get our affiliate deals renewed all over the country.
I mean, they're in a lot of trouble.
And so, Whoopi, who's seen as the leader right on The View, is being told, You got to get everybody on the same page.
So she's saying, Well, help me.
I don't know what I'm supposed to say because there's nothing in the teleprompter and I have only one place to go, right?
And Joy is out there saying, Well, of course, we have only one place to go because we hate Trump and we're not going to change our minds about how much we hate Trump.
Let's keep listening.
You do what you're supposed to do.
You bring up the words I need to say.
So, what I need to say is, we're going to go back to the convo that we were having.
You see, you touch.
So that is her publicly arguing with her producers there right on set, saying, you know what you guys want me to be?
This, then write it for me, let me see it in the prompter.
Must we all right, go ahead?
Yeah, that's what that is i'm telling you, and not everybody's on board.
So I think Whoopi is, I think actually Whoopi is very commercial and she's made a decision, she needs to keep her job.
So she's trying to keep the bosses happy.
Bob Iger told her, this is what you got to do.
And yet the rest of the team wants no part of it.
I want you to take a look at this.
So this is Sonny Houston, who's their quote unquote lawyer who had to keep reading these legal notes, which became kind of a nightmare, right?
Going into the election and thereafter.
And so she clearly also does not have a thought in her head.
Apparently, if it's not in the teleprompter or on her note card, she can't deliver it.
Watch how she stares down at her notes.
So somebody's feeding her this garbage, which tells me you've got a lot of people on different sides.
The producers thinking one way, the talent thinking another.
And you don't have people that have enough conviction internally, right, to actually speak what they believe, which is part of the problem with the entire show.
So, Trump definitely doesn't understand economics.
He's listening to someone who you say doesn't understand economics.
And so, there is no end plan.
There is no game plan.
He doesn't know how to negotiate.
He couldn't negotiate himself out of a paper bag.
But the issue here.
But his narcissism prevents him from admitting that.
And to Whoopi's point at the very beginning, meaning that clip that we played, That he's saying, you know, everybody's kissing my butt.
They're actually not because China has accused the United States of blackmail and declared that Beijing would fight to the end.
The Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, has said its friendship with the U.S. is over.
Australia's, yes, Australia's Prime Minister, Anthony Albany, said Trump's tariffs have no basis in logic, are not the act of a friend, and he called them totally unwarranted.
Macron from France, he said the tariffs are brutal and unfounded.
Who said this?
We went from the envy of the world to the enemy of the world.
Yes, who said that?
I can't really, I don't know who said that, but what I will say, when you.
From my perspective, I'm looking at this and I'm thinking no country can count on America anymore.
They're going to ice us out economically.
We're going to be on our own because they're not going to be able to depend on a country that every four years could elect a dictator.
They can't rely upon us.
The problem is this.
So I'm thinking maybe Sonny didn't get the boss's order, right?
Again, they are being told, knock it off.
We don't think this is working for ratings, and it's clearly not working for the company overall.
So do they actually cancel the show?
I mean, that's a big question.
The ratings have miraculously held up.
And so Sonny and Ana Navarro and Joy Behar are sitting there saying, but, our viewers hate Trump.
This works for us.
And the people in the business office are saying, well, it doesn't really work for us because nobody's wanting to buy the advertising for this show.
And it's not courting apparently the audience that we want.
And then on top of it, yeah, you got the FCC that's become kind of a problem.
And I don't think donald Trump has a whole lot of respect, shall we say, for ABC, right?
Remember Terry Moran, the guy who Trump was like, wait a second, you know, this was your big chance, Terry?
Like, what happened?
I had never heard of you.
This is why I gave you the gig.
So he's an ABC reporter.
And, you know, Trump thinks everybody's terrible at ABC.
Well, this guy, this guy certainly wasn't doing them any favors either, right?
Terry Moran, you wonder if he's going to get laid off over there.
Let's take a listen.
I campaigned on that issue.
I've done an amazing job.
I have closed borders.
He said you couldn't do it.
You wouldn't be able to do it.
It would never happen.
Well, it happened.
And it happened very quickly.
Wait a minute.
When we have criminals, murderers, criminals in this country, we have to get them out.
And we're doing it.
And you'll pick out one man.
But even the man that you picked out, he said he wasn't a member of a gang.
And then they looked, and on his knuckles, he had MS 13.
There's a dispute.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
He had MS-13 on his knuckles tattoos.
He had some tattoos that are interpreted that way.
But let's move on.
Wait a minute.
Terry.
He did not have the letter MS-13.
It says MS-13.
That was Photoshop.
So let me just.
That was Photoshop, Terry.
You can hear that.
Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime.
You know, you're doing the interview.
I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that's okay.
I picked you, Terry.
But you're not being very nice.
He had MS-13 tattoos.
We'll agree to disagree.
I want to move on to something else.
Terry, do you want me to show you the picture?
I saw the picture.
We'll go over it.
And you think it was Photoshop?
Here we go.
Don't Photoshop it.
Go look at his hand.
He had MS-13.
He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way.
I'm not an expert on them.
I want to turn to Ukraine.
I want to get to Ukraine.
No, no.
No, no.
He had MS as clear as you can be, not interpreted.
This is why people no longer believe the news because he's fake news.
When he's fake news in El Salvador, they aren't there.
But let's just go on.
They aren't there when he's in El Salvador.
Oh, they want to take a look at the photo.
They're there now, right?
No.
But they're there.
They're in your picture.
Terry.
Ukraine, sir.
He's got MS 13 on his knuckles.
All right.
Okay.
We'll take a look at that.
Ukraine and Layoffs00:01:38
It's such a disservice.
We'll take a look at that.
Why don't you just say yes, he does, and go on to something else?
He's contested.
Oh, wow.
Well, you know, between Snow White, between George Stephanopoulos, the Terry Moran disaster, and of course, none other than The View, I think they get a few problems at.
Disney, a few problems at ABC.
We wish them luck.
I think that you're going to actually see a lot more layoffs coming.
Don't forget, ABC News was hit by hundreds of layoffs as recently as March.
So here we are, March, April, May, June.
Next quarter, you're getting more layoffs.
It actually goes straight back to my thesis here, that as this media environment changes drastically, you can't have one, the woke nonsense that's costing you a lot of money that's not actually anything that anybody wants to see.
And second of all, you can't have these expensive productions with your live studio audience that has to clap every time Joy Behar does whatever, right?
They send the clapping signs out.
That doesn't work in this brave new world.
And so you look at, for instance, even subscriptions, right?
Streaming subscriptions to Disney, down.
And the only thing maybe they can try and pull off would actually be ESPN, because I think that people will pay up for ESPN.
And so they'll have subscriptions for that.
but they'll have to make a real transition away from the cable model.
And so we're watching this here on the front lines in real time.
And it's sort of kind of just amazing, right?
Like it's like everything I told you was going to happen keeps happening every single day.