Whoopi Goldberg Fires Back at Trump After He Calls Her Comedy ‘Dirty’: ‘I Never Grabbed Anybody by Their Genitalia’

Former President Donald Trump had a lot to say about The View at two of his Pennsylvania rallies on Wednesday, Oct. 9, and to no surprise, the co-hosts of the ABC daytime series didn’t bite their tongues when responding.

Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin both opened the live Thursday, Oct. 10, episode of The View by slamming the Republican presidential candidate in scathing back-to-back critiques. As the moderator of the production, Goldberg went first, introducing two clips from Trump rallies in Scranton and Reading, Pa., to contextualize what was to come.

Both scenes showed Trump discussing The View‘s Oct. 8 sit-down with his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. But rather than challenging the points Harris made on the show, Trump brought his attacks to the show’s panel of personalities, calling them “really dumb people.”

Speaking about Goldberg specifically, Trump recalled making a cameo in her 1996 film, Eddie, alleging that she told him afterwards, “‘Oh, you’re so great. If you ever ran for president, you’d win.’ ”

“Politics can do strange things to demented people,” Trump said.

He then went on to claim that he hired Goldberg to work for him before as a comedian, but was turned off by her act. “I’m not particularly shy about what I hear. [But] her mouth was so foul,” Trump said. “She was so filthy, dirty. Disgusting. Half the place left. I said I’d never hire her again!”

Goldberg, for her part, didn’t debate using blue language. “As it turns out, I was filthy. I was filthy, and stand on that fact,” she said. “I have always been filthy. And you knew that when you hired me [to be] a headline[r], babe, at your casino — which I might have continued to play had you not run it into the ground!”

“You know how dirty I wasn’t? I never grabbed anybody by their genitalia,” Goldberg continued, referencing the lewd comments Trump was caught on tape saying in unaired audio from a 2005 interview with Access Hollywood that surfaced during the 2016 election. “Many people use the F-bomb. He’s used the F-bomb… But there’s a difference between people who assault other people and people who say words that you don’t want little kids saying in the middle of church.”

Though she admitted to having profanity in her sets, Goldberg did push back on Trump’s claim that he would never hire her again.

“How dumb are you? You hired me four times,” Goldberg said, insisting doubters check with her agents at William Morris to fact check her. “You hired me four times! And you didn’t know what you were getting? How dumb are you?”

“Dumb” is a word that Trump also used to describe Hostin, after she asked Harris if she would have done anything different has she been president the past three years.

“The other one asking the question is dumber than Kamala,” Trump said. “She’s a dummy. I watched her over the years, that is one dumb woman.”

Teed up by Goldberg on Thursday’s episode of The View, Hostin launched into her own teardown of the former president, with nods to his numerous legal troubles over the years including allegations of sexual assault lobbied his way and the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records Trump was found guilty of back in May. (He’s maintained his innocence in all cases.)

“Donald Trump, I want to thank you for personally telling so many lies and committing so many alleged crimes and providing us with material on a daily basis,” said Hostin, a former federal prosecutor. “You help us do our jobs and I’m so appreciative. Because of people like you, a former prosecutor and legal expert can become a fixture on a show like this and again, I’m so grateful.”

After their comments, Goldberg and Hostin’s co-hosts Joy Behar, Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin all offered comments of support.

Farah Griffin, who worked in Trump’s administration as the press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence and special assistant to Trump from October 2017 to September 2019, offered insight into Trump’s psyche based on her first-hand perspective.

“He’s always been triggered by women when they call him out,” she claimed. “It’s why he has such a challenge with women in this election and why I think they’re going to be such a deciding factor when he loses. And there’s a reason why his campaign doesn’t want him to keep doing these rallies. They hurt him because the more people hear the crazy, the meanness, the name calling, they’re just over it.”

Trump doesn’t appear to show any signs of stopping his rallies, with upcoming ones scheduled in Colorado, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Only 26 days remain until Election Day.

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.