“The View” panelists agreed President Donald Trump and his allies were endangering government officials for political reasons, and co-host Meghan McCain described the threats she faced after the former reality TV star attacked her.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) joined the president for a campaign rally in Kentucky, where the senator offered revealing details about the whistleblower and urged the media to print his name.
“Had Nixon tried to do this to anyone,” said host Whoopi Goldberg, “we would have had him out, said, ‘No, that’s not how the law works, the Constitution doesn’t work like that, that’s not how the law works.'"
Co-host Joy Behar said the Republican Party still had ethics in the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon resigned rather than face impeachment, and Goldberg agreed that times had changed.
“For me, when I see that the Department of Justice is no longer, doesn’t feel neutral,” Goldberg said, “they’re not looking to see if it’s true, they’re just saying, ‘Well, you know, it’s done, that makes me uncomfortable.'”
Co-host Sunny Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, said Paul may have broken the law to defend Trump from damaging whistleblower claims.
“I’m so disgusted because, you know, if Rand Paul were doing this to a witness and saying this about a witness that I had on one of my cases,” Hostin said, “I would send an FBI agent to his house and I would have him brought in because that’s witness intimidation, punishable by up to 20 years in prison. I would have him brought in.”
Co-host Abby Huntsman said the president’s attacks on his accusers betray his fear at being exposed.
“When you threaten people and degrade people’s character, which the president continues to do, you are afraid of something,” Huntsman said. “That’s all you need to know — he’s insecure.”
McCain recalled when then-candidate Trump tweeted out an attack on her for critical comments she made as a commentator on the Fox News program “The Five.”
“I haven’t been threatened by the president, but I’ve certainly been — this is serious, Joy,” McCain said. “When I worked at Fox, he tweeted for me to get fired, because I was so terrible.”
She said the experience was alarming, because some Trump followers take his attacks as a directive.
“When President Trump says something about you and zeros you out, it is very scary,” McCain said, “and I know from experience, it is very intense. His supporters come out like (hordes) of zombie apocalyptic people coming to get you. It’s very scary.”
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