The View Goes to War With Trump While Fighting the FCC

When a sitting president’s administration targets a daytime talk show for investigation, you’d expect the hosts to either go silent or play it safe. The View is doing neither—and that’s exactly why Donald Trump seems to hate the show so much.

The Federal Communications Commission, under the Trump administration, has been quietly investigating ABC’s long-running daytime talk show for the past several months. The stated reason: whether The View was failing to follow federal guidelines on equal airtime for opposing political candidates. That explanation strains credibility, and ABC knows it. The network has come out swinging with an aggressive legal defense, accusing Trump’s FCC of violating First Amendment rights as a pretext to punish the show for airing viewpoints the administration doesn’t like. For context, this marks a dramatic reversal for ABC, which settled a $15 million defamation lawsuit with Trump back in December 2024 rather than fight him in court. Now the network appears emboldened—and The View’s hosts are running with it.

Over the past week, the show has essentially turned into a master class in unapologetic pushback. The hosts—Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, and Alyssa Farah Griffin—have made criticizing the Trump administration seem like part of the show’s DNA. When FBI Director Kash Patel appeared before Congress, Hostin called his behavior unseemly and belligerent. Goldberg followed up with a flat statement:“I don’t believe in anybody who is running this country right now.”Even rare episodes that don’t lead with Trump news somehow circle back to him—like when a segment on Spencer Pratt’s Los Angeles mayoral bid inevitably became a commentary on unqualified reality stars in politics, or when discussing Nicki Minaj’s recent interview led to talk of her embrace of Trump.

What’s striking is the consistency. Goldberg went on a pointed monologue about how Trump didn’t care about Americans’healthcare when Affordable Care Act subsidies expired, didn’t care about safety when TSA agents faced delayed payments, and now doesn’t care that families can’t afford food. That’s not wishy-washy commentary—that’s conviction on camera, five days a week. Even Alyssa Farah Griffin, who actually worked in Trump’s first administration and might be expected to offer occasional defense, has stopped doing so. When Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s reality-star-adjacent road trip came up, she criticized the whole administration:“My kingdom for Cabinet secretaries who aren’t dying to be influencers or social media stars.”

The real story here isn’t just what’s happening on air—it’s what it signals about media in this moment. The View’s hosts could have been intimidated into caution by the FCC investigation. Instead, they’re swinging harder. That matters. Whether you agree with their politics or not, they’re demonstrating that an administration investigation didn’t silence them. ABC’s legal team essentially gave them cover to keep doing what they do. And Goldberg’s closing line—”We are in this together, and we’ll get through it together”—now carries extra weight. It’s a message both to the hosts’audience and, implicitly, to anyone else wondering whether speaking up is worth the risk.

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