Whoopi Goldberg Shuts Down Protestors During Ted Cruz’s Appearance on ‘The View’

Chaos was brewing on Monday’s episode of The View. Ted Cruz was the special guest. As he was talking about inflation, all of a sudden, his speech was upstaged by climate protestors in the audience. Whoopi Goldberg shut them down, though, and they were escorted out.

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The View’s First Ted Cruz Interruption: Whoopi Goldberg Shuts the Protestors Down

The shouts of “Cover climate now!” were heard as Ted Cruz was talking. He kept trying to speak, but eventually, it became obvious that no one was paying attention anymore. Then Whoopi Goldberg stepped in.

“Ladies,” she said, confronting two unseen women in the audience. “Excuse us. Let us do our job. We hear what you all have to say but you gotta go,” she demanded, pointing to the door. “You gotta go. You gotta let us do our job.”

The View’s newest co-host, Alyssa Farah Griffin, said, “We do cover climate here, you guys.” She then turned to Cruz and quipped, “They weren’t even protesting you.” Griffin is the former White House Director of Strategic Communications and assistant to Donald Trump.

When Cruz said he couldn’t hear what the protestors were saying, co-host Sunny Hostin said, “They’re accusing us of not covering climate change, and we do that every day.”

Cruz then joked, “I’m really glad that you don’t have a Van Gogh on the wall, that would have been a problem.”

He was referencing a protest which occurred earlier this month when two climate protestors from the Just Stop Oil movement tossed tomato soup on a Van Gogh art piece at the National Gallery. Just Stop Oil is a climate change protest movement that uses direct action and disruptive action as its modus operandi. And it is incidentally being financially backed by the daughter of a big oil tycoon, Aileen Getty.

The Second Interruption: The View, Ted Cruz Go Mute

But then The View was interrupted again. This time, the audio on ABC is muted so you can’t hear what was being said. The hosts and Cruz all stop talking and look out at the crowd.

While scenes from ABC were kept relatively demure, the organizations in charge of the protests showed another side. Extinction Rebellion, one of many climate activist organizations that are organizing #OccupyParkAve , posted an uncensored video of the incident. The Twitter video above is from the second interruption. And now we can see why ABC muted everything.

“F*** you, Ted Cruz, you climate-denying piece of sh*t!” yells a protestor, while waving an Extinction Rebellion flag. “Do you not care about the farmers in Texas? You climate-denying piece of sh*t! F*** you!”

Many in the audience are cheering on the protestor as she gets escorted off the premises by multiple security guards.

What It Looked Like From The View’s Crowd the First Time

@ny4change

🚨BREAKING: We interrupted this morning’s @The View to protest @ABC News’s lack of climate coverage and its platforming of climate denier Ted Cruz 🤮 ABC spent less than 6 hours covering the climate crisis in all of 2021! Whoopi, we heard you telling us to let you do your job — but your network is failing to do its job and cover one of the most important stories of our times. #NYC #TheView #NYCTok #TedCruz

♬ original sound – NY Communities for Change

Another video of The View’s audience’s perspective was shared to social media. In that one, you can clearly hear what the first protestors were saying. While it was barely heard on ABC, it’s clear as day here.

It begins with chants of “Cover climate now!”

Then one of the women says, “ABC needs to cover climate change more instead of platforming a climate denier like Ted Cruz. ABC spent less than six hours last year covering climate change and now they’re platforming someone like Ted Cruz, whose climate denial is resulting in terrible…”

Her last words get cut off by her companion’s shouts of “Cover climate now!”

Extinction Rebellion wasn’t the lone organization that put on the protests. Sunrise Movement tweeted that it was a planned event put on by numerous entities.

“We, along with the other groups leading the #OccupyParkAvenue actions, take credit for interrupting demagogue Ted Cruz to call out ABC for having only SIX HOURS of climate coverage during all of 2021,” Sunrise wrote. “Cover climate and stop showing deceitful fossil fuel ads NOW.”

The Media’s Coverage of Climate Change: What the Protestors Were Protesting

While the protestors obviously had an axe to grind with Ted Cruz, who has repeatedly downplayed the impact that the fossil fuel industry has on climate change and the severity of global heating, they were also holding ABC’s feet to the fire. Their ultimate bone to pick seemed to be with media coverage in general, pointing out that ABC spent only 6 hours discussing climate change in 2021.

According to MediaMatters.org, ABC spent 323 minutes (less than 5 ½ hours) in total discussing climate change in 2021. While these numbers were higher than the year before, they were less than NBC and CBS. In total, all major TV networks combined spent 1,316 minutes discussing climate change over a total of 604 segments in 2021.

Media Bias / Fact Check rates MediaMatters.org as “High” in factual reporting but left-biased because the site selectively analyzes right-leaning sources.

The Pew Research Center shows that more Americans now see the media as growing in its influence compared to recent years. Ultimately, the question is, if climate change is put on the media’s backburner, will enough people care to take action and do something? And, if fossil fuel companies are paying for ads on major TV and social networks, will this push back climate action? This is what the climate protestors take issue with.

As for Ted Cruz, at least he took the heckling like a champ. And Ana Navarro, who isn’t afraid to bump heads with Cruz, apologized for the incident on The View.

“I’ve been very vocal and critical of you,” said Navarro, “but I’m sorry that this has happened in our house.”

Read More: Whoopi Goldberg Reveals ‘Sister Act 3’ Is In the Works

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