Whoopi Goldberg Urges Trump to 'Just Come Out' After Weeks of 'Glowing' Praise for Putin

Whoopi Goldberg renewed her criticism of Donald Trump's praise for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin Tuesday morning on The View. In a moment she later apologized for, Whoopi joked that Trump should "just come out" about his love for Putin. "You want to put on a tree, 'you know who' and Putin K-I-S-S-I-N-G," said Whoopi. "That's what it feels like."

With Stephanie Grisham, Trump's former press secretary, on hand as guest co-host, the women of The View quickly jumped into a discussion about how the former president would have responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "I think he would have a completely hands-off approach. I think he'd be like, 'Go on in there,'" said Grisham, who served various roles in the Trump White House from 2017 to 2021. "He really admired Putin, and I saw that first-hand. I saw him say to Putin, 'Hey, I'm going to be tough on you in front of the cameras, you understand, and once the cameras are gone, we'll have a real conversation.'"

When Grisham added that Trump "would actually talk about how tough" Putin is "and be in awe of what he's doing," Whoopi reminded her that he's been doing exactly that. "I've never in my lifetime seen any American president talk about Russia and what they've done in such glowing terms," she said. "It blew my mind."

The co-hosts continued to press Grisham about Trump's true motivations, and she insisted that her former boss is both "afraid" of Putin and admires him. "He wanted to be able to kill whoever spoke out against him," she said. "In my experience with him, I'll just say, he loved the dictators. He love the people who could kill anyone, including the press."

"He once asked me, 'Who do you think the bigger killer is, Stephanie? President Xi of China, or Erdoğan here, of Turkey?'" Grisham recalled. "I could go on and on about KJU, from North Korea. Remember they wrote 'love letters.'"

"Oh, just come out!" replied Whoopi, earning a long but slightly uncomfortable round of laughs from the co-hosts and the studio audience. "I mean, I'm tongue in cheek, but I'm just like — these are not the people we're supposed to be looking up to! It's just not what we're supposed to be doing!"

"I'm sorry. I better say it now before I get in trouble," she continued, as Sunny Hostin tried to clarify that she was joking. "Well, yeah, but you know. This is — it's crazy."

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