Jeanine Pirro's appearance on The View took social media by storm yesterday after she came to blows with moderator Whoopi Goldberg over President Donald Trump's performance in Helsinki earlier this week, and she tells fellow Fox alum Sean Hannity that Goldberg "came" at her and "screamed F you" after the segment aired..
"So forget about what she did to me on set, which was horrific in itself but the treatment by Whoopi Goldberg is typical of what is going on in this country," Pirro said. "The left, they invite you on to talk, they then won’t let you talk, they throw you off the show and then they throw you out of the building. And here’s the problem Sean, the problem is once one starts doing it, the rest of them are going to start doing it."
The full transcript of Pirro's remarks to Hannity are below:
If you listen to that, I haven’t watched it and I haven’t looked at what happening. I’m still reeling from it to be honest with you. I went on thinking that we would have a discussion about the book. The truth is, that it was an attack on Donald Trump, and then on me. I sat there as Whoopi Goldberg pontificated about how horrible Donald Trump was and at one point I said ‘you know I’m here to talk about the book’ and then she went ballistic – ended the segment. She said ‘that’s it I’m done’ and what people didn’t see who were watching the show, was she yanked away from the desk where we were all sitting and she decided that she was going to end it. No one saw that, but it got worse.When I went off the stage, Sean, I’m walking downstairs and I said something like, Whoopi I fought for victims my whole life and she came at me as I was leaving and she said ‘F you’ in my face – literally spitting at me, ‘F you, get the F out of this building.’ And I said to her, ‘did you just say that?’ She said that’s what I said, ‘get the F out of this building’ and she was screaming at me and I’m walking out of the building like a dog who was just kicked off. So forget about what she did to me on set, which was horrific in itself but the treatment by Whoopi Goldberg is typical of what is going on in this country. The left, they invite you on to talk, they then won’t let you talk, they throw you off the show and then they throw you out of the building. And here’s the problem Sean, the problem is once one starts doing it, the rest of them are going to start doing it.
I said in the first segment – and again I have to look at it – I said ‘we need to start talking about this stuff.’ We need to start recognizing that it doesn’t matter if it’s Donald Trump or if it’s a Democrat running. We’ve got to have a Department of Justice and FBI that is not corrupt. I’ll tell you Sean, I’ve been prosecutor, a judge for 30 years. I’ve sat on murder trials – I’d go toe-to-toe with anyone. I’ve tried murder cases, I’ve gone against drug cartels… I have never been treated like that in my life. I was stunned.
But Goldberg, who responded to the controversy on The View earlier today, says Pirro is not telling the whole story.
“Things got hot on the air, but I want to clear up what happened afterwards," Goldberg said, noting that Pirro had left some pertinent information out of her account of the events.
Pirro was “upset when she got here," Goldberg said, because Ana Navarro, an anti-Trump Republican strategist was filling in for View co-host Joy Behar. She also said that she did not, in fact, end the segment, when she shouted, "Say goodbye, I'm done!" at Pirro. “It ended when it was supposed to,” Goldberg said.
Pirro "then called everybody at the table a name I cannot repeat on TV and said it in front of the audience,” she added.
A witness who spoke to The Daily Beast confirmed that after the segment concluded and Goldberg had stepped off the set, Pirro ripped off her microphone and yelled, "Those cocksuckers! This is exactly what I told them would happen.”
Goldberg says that Pirro confronted her and “put a finger in [her] face,” telling her, "I’ve done more for victims than you ever will!” In response, Goldberg says she said “a few choice words I cannot repeat.”
“Yes, I did say it,” Goldberg said in reference to Pirro's claim that Goldberg told her "F you," but she denied “spitting” on Pirro.
“I did not intimidate her,” she said. “No one chased her out of here saying, ‘Get out.’ But she did leave here cursing at the people who book the show, she cursed at the guys who do security for the show.
“I suspect this is going to go on, because she [has] a show on Saturday and stuff," Goldberg said, referring to Pirro's upcoming book, Liars, Leakers, and Liberals, in which Pirro claims to lay out the case against “the anti-Trump conspiracy.” "But look, you can come to this show, we treat everybody with respect. But you cannot come and call people names.”
Pirro has not responded to Goldberg's account, but yesterday's event became one of the week's most talked about moments on television.
The View hosts and Pirro had sparred over President Trump's choice to contradict the assessment of his own intelligence agencies that Russian President Vladimir Putin had worked to subvert the 2016 presidential election and undermine American democracy.
Pirro defended Trump’s performance, saying, “What was he supposed to do, take a gun out and shoot Putin?” and deflected each time any one of the View hosts tried to get a word in edgewise with, “And what did Barack Obama do?”
Pirro continued, insisting that she’s “not an ideologue,” and referred to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the president’s Russia ties as a “con.” But it was when guest-host Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist and political commentator for various news outlets, asked her to justify her support for Trump that the appearance took a swift turn.
"You just said you’re not an ideologue," Navarro said. "Do you think Donald Trump embraces and embodies conservative ideology? He used to have a different position on pro-choice, he is imposing tariffs, he’s against globalism. Do you think he’s an ideologue that is faithful to conservative policies?"
"I’m not here to talk about what Donald Trump is or isn’t," Pirro said in response. She then asked Navarro to name one metric in which the U.S. is “worse off” since Trump took office; Navarro replied: “Hate crimes are worse off!”
After moderator Goldberg tried to get a word in, Pirro accused her of having “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a phrase used by the president earlier this week to scoff at critics of his performance in Helsinki.
Goldberg replied:
Did you just point at me? Listen, I don’t have Trump derangement. Let me tell you what I have. I’m tired of people starting a conversation with ‘Mexicans are liars and rapists. Listen, I’m 62 years old. There have been a lot of people in office that I didn’t agree with. But I have never, ever seen anything like this. I have never seen anybody whip up such hate. I have never seen anybody be so dismissive.
Their exchange quickly became more combative, with Pirro accusing Goldberg of downplaying “horrible” instances of “people who shouldn’t be here end up murdering the children of American citizens,” and Goldberg criticizing Pirro’s support for “when the president of the United States whips up people to beat the hell out of people.”
“Say goodbye, I’m done!” Goldberg said, ending the segment before it could devolve further.
After Pirro had left the set, Goldberg turned the camera and said:
So you saw me do something I very rarely do. I very rarely lose my cool. And I’m not proud of it. I don’t like it. But I also don’t like being accused of being hysterical. That’s one of those things I try not to be on this show.So have a great day.
Pirro later took to Twitter to decry the "intolerance" of "the left.
Is this saga over? Only time will tell.
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