‘The View’: Whoopi Goldberg Excoriates New Trump Press Secretary Over ‘Wokeness’ Briefing Comments

Amanda Bell January 29, 2025, 12:00 pm

Whoopi Goldberg and Karoline Leavitt — ABC / Getty Images

Things got off to a relatively tame start on Wednesday’s (January 29) edition of The View — until the subject of the first Trump administration press briefing came up, and Whoopi Goldberg went on an absolute tear about one of the new press secretary’s first statements.

The “Hot Topic” at hand was ostensibly about the fact that Karoline Leavitt said the White House was committed to welcoming bloggers and influencers who cover news into the briefing room, but Goldberg wanted to talk about another part of her debut statements.

“I would like her to do a little homework because she said something yesterday that really pissed me off. And that was she said, ‘There will be no wokeness here.’ Oh, yeah, let me explain something to you, because without that wokeness, you might not have that job,” Goldberg said. “Yeah, because women were not invited to that table. Women were not invited to many tables in this nation.”

Goldberg’s heated reaction continued, “The reason we fought and busted our behinds [was] to make sure that you didn’t have to worry about this. And now to hear you talk about it, and to hear anybody talk about ‘the wokeness,’ the wokeness was put in place for a reason: because Black people couldn’t get into colleges, because women could not get into the colleges they wanted to go to. This is all women, see. This is not Black, Asian women. This is all women. Women were not invited to this party. It was a man’s world, and we busted our a**es to make sure that this was a person’s world. So please, please stop using that phrase and talking about this because you don’t understand what you’re saying.”

'The View' Cohosts Slam Trump's Hannity Interview: 'What Happened to the Price of Eggs?'

Leavitt, who held the first White House press briefing on Tuesday (January 28), referenced so-called “wokeness” in her question-and-answer series with reporters. She was asked about the “confusion” among medical care and other providers resulting from the federal funding freeze ordered by Trump (which has been suspended by a federal judge after sowing chaos, particularly with Medicaid portals). In response, Leavitt defended the action and said that the pause is really meant to result in “no more funding for transgenderism and wokeness across our federal bureaucracy and agencies.”

As for the direct topic at hand, introducing new types of outlets to the briefing room, Goldberg said, “The mistake is there’s too much BS floating out there, and now it’s out of our hands. There’s no way to control it. So now they’re saying they’re going to control it. I want to see what they’re going to do. I want to see who they’re going to invite into this because, quite honestly, I like when we’re held to standards. I don’t always like the way they do it, but we have to have ourselves together. We can’t just say stuff in spite of what they tell you. We can’t just spout stuff. So I want that for everybody, and if they’re going to guarantee that there at the briefing, then I’ll be happy.”

The View, Weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC