Whoopi Goldberg Skewers Anti-Vax Fox News Hosts: 'It's All About the Dough'

The women of The View made no mention of Meghan McCain's bombshell new audiobook, in which she says her departure was spurred on by "purposeful hostility" from her co-hosts, but do I detect the slightest bit of shade coming from Whoopi's end of the table? The longtime moderator spent the morning tearing into Fox News hosts, many of whom are vaccinated, for downplaying the need for the COVID-19 vaccine on-air, a move she believes reflects their desire to remain on TV, and nothing else. "It's all about the dough!" she said. "You're on television. You're getting paid, just like we are!"

Goldberg's impassioned monologue came during a discussion about footage of President Biden leaving a restaurant without wearing a mask and its impact on his administration's COVID messaging. While Behar and Goldberg brushed off the footage — "Everything in that room has been vaccinated," said Goldberg — Sunny Hostin dinged Biden for the bad optics. "Why give them an opportunity to be hypocrites, though?" she asked, when someone brought up Fox News' coverage of the incident. "We're having a problem with messaging in this country, and we're giving them these opportunities over and over and over again."

After Hostin played a clip of Tucker Carlson discussing Colin Powell's death and the "lie" Americans are being fed about vaccines, Goldberg stepped in to shut down Carlson's rhetoric. "At some point, people are going to have to grow up," she said. "Five gazillion of us are vaccinated, and we're okay ... You see people who have been vaccinated walking around. We're not walking around with two heads or five tails. We are walking around like everybody else."

PSAKI DEFENDS BIDENS FOR GOING MASKLESS: After White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended footage of the Bidens leaving a restaurant in Washington, D.C. unmasked, the co-hosts and @EboniKWilliams discuss the optics of maskless public officials. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/DFTKkxKo6t

— The View (@TheView) October 19, 2021

"It is very simple: [Colin Powell] may not have died as quickly had everybody been vaccinated," continued Goldberg. "And all those folks over at Fox who have been vaccinated, tell your people. Tell your people why you had to get it."

"You decided you wanted to stay on television rather than keep going and talking about what you're talking about," she said of Fox News' anti-vaccine stance. "So, let's not be pretending here. Aight? Aight."

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.