For the third consecutive day this week, the first “Hot Topic” of the day on Wednesday’s (July 16) new edition of The View was the continued backlash Donald Trump and his administration are receiving over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein “files.” This time, the cohosts reviewed footage of mega-podcaster Joe Rogan, who endorsed Trump in the 2024 election, expressing his dismay over the administration’s claim there is no “list” of high-profile child sex trafficking clients and Trump’s own insistence that his followers should just let the story go.
Whoopi Goldberg began the discussion by dragging Trump’s recent claim that the Epstein files were created as a “hoax” by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, saying, “All you have to do is look at anything from the time, and you’ll see who was president.” She was referring, of course, to the fact that Epstein was arrested by the federal government for his prostitution ring in 2019, when Trump was president, and died in his cell, reportedly by suicide, just weeks later.
Joy Behar was the next to speak on the matter and said, “I’ve been watching it… and he keeps protesting. ‘There’s no list, there’s no list,’ then ‘there’s a list, there’s no list.’ It’s like the lady doth protest too much.” She went on to add, “If I kept saying that I never dyed my hair… you would believe the opposite, right? That’s what he’s doing. ‘I’m innocent. I’m innocent. I did nothing,’ a lot of what he’s saying, and that makes me suspicious. That’s all I’m saying. Whether he’s on it or he’s not on it, I’m just suspicious.”
Goldberg then made the rare move of jumping back in right away and said, “Well, I don’t like the fact that they just keep throwing it out there, and they have nothing to back it up. And when somebody says, ‘Hey, you’re not wearing any clothes, Emperor,’ they go, ‘Oh yes, I’m fully dressed. I’m absolutely fully[dressed] you didn’t see that? Well, Obama snatched my clothes early!”
Behar then cited Trump’s latest social media screed on the matter in which he decried those questioning his handling of the Epstein case as “weaklings.” “The latest thing is that he’s calling the MAGAs ‘weaklings’ because they are turning on him. Yeah, this is a guy who got out of the Army because of bone spurs. He’s calling them ‘weaklings,’ yeah, and they’re not gonna like that. They’re not gonna like that.”
Sunny Hostin was the next to weigh in on the matter and explained why she is surprised that this particular issue has been the one that actually riles up some of Trump’s supporter base. “They were unfazed by the fact that he was found guilty of 34 counts of fraud. They were unfazed by the January 6 riots. They were unfazed when he was found liable of sexual abuse. They were unfazed by his two impeachments. They were seemingly unfazed by masked men disappearing people off the streets and sending U.S. citizens out of the country, all of that unfazed them, but this Jeffrey Epstein thing, man, it’s got them in a bunch,” she said. “So I think he’s a bit surprised by that, which is why he’s pulling out this old playbook, ‘Russia, Russia hoax,’ and ‘It’s Biden and Obama.’”
Hostin then went on to suggest that others in power should accept a reported offer from Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of being part of Epstein’s ring, recruiting young girls and trafficking them to be sexually abused right alongside Epstein. “Ghislaine Maxwell, she’s in prison, and she’s reportedly willing to testify. Let her testify.”
To that, Behar noted, “She better be careful,” a possible reference to the conspiracy theories that Epstein didn’t actually die by suicide.
Alyssa Farah Griffin then said that the reason the Epstein story isn’t dying down, despite Trump’s open demands for supporters to drop it, is because of podcasters like Rogan.
“The mainstream media is going to have other stories. There’s, God forbid, going to be national natural disasters, the things that happen in the course of life that we have to cover. But there are these kind of so-called manosphere podcasters who played such a huge role in Donald Trump getting elected. Joe Rogan, Andrew Schulz, Theo Von, who have 10s of millions of listeners who are not letting this go. Every one of them has said that they feel betrayed around the issue of Epstein.”
Sara Haines had her own thought on those podcasters’ dismay with Trump, saying, “I find it so funny that it’s taken Theo Von, Andrew Schulz, Joe Rogan took this long to be shocked, because the things they’re saying he did wrong [like] immigration, he ran on everything he’s doing. He talked about mass deportations. Not a shocker if you’re using your brain.”
“He essentially broadcast everything he was going to do,” Haines continued. “So to sit back now and say, ‘He really disappointed me,’ maybe that should have started before you used your massive platform to recruit a whole nation of voters.”
The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC
If you or someone you know is the victim of child abuse, contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.
If you or someone you know is the victim of human trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888 or text INFO to 233733. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.
If you or someone you know is the victim of sexual assault, contact the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network‘s National Helpline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673). If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.