‘The View’: Whoopi Goldberg Makes Fiery Defense of Chiefs Kicker’s Controversial Commencement Speech

The View got off to a running start on Thursday’s new episode as Whoopi Goldberg opened the show’s “Hot Topics” segment with an impassioned defense of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker, whose controversial commencement speech has led to calls for his termination from the Super Bowl-winning team.

After playing a clip of the speech, in which Butker claimed that women have been told “diabolical lies” about gender roles and that “the majority” of the new graduates in the crowd were “most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

That was just one part of the speech, which also criticized President Joe Biden, reproductive rights, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and the LGBTQ+ community and encouraged men in the audience to “be unapologetic in your masculinity.” After Butker delivered that address to the Class of 2024 at Benedictine College, a Catholic university, more than 100,000 people signed a Change.org petition demanding his ouster from the NFL team for “discriminatory remarks.”

For Goldberg, the prospect of him being fired from the team for his views is unacceptable: “I like when people say what they need to say. He’s at a Catholic college. These are his beliefs, and he’s welcome and he’s welcome to ’em. … I don’t have to accept them. The ladies that were sitting in that audience do not have to accept them. but the same way we want respect when Colin Kaepernick takes the knee, we want to give respect to those people whose ideas are different from ours,” Goldberg said. “I’m okay with him saying whatever he says, and the women who were sitting there, if they take his advice, they’ll be happy, and if they don’t,  good for them, they will be happy in different ways.”

Sara Haines took issue with Goldberg’s comparison of the situation to Kaepernick, who refused to stand for the U.S. national anthem before his games in protest of racial injustices and was subsequently unsigned by other teams and filed a grievance against the NFL, which was later settled.

“Colin Kaepernick was standing up for the rights of many and saying in a social justice moment, ‘This is a reminder that we’re not there,'” Haines pointed out. Then, Haines also called Butker’s viewpoints an “extreme” version of Catholicism.

Sunny Hostin, who is a practicing Catholic, agreed that Butker’s views are counter to the church (noting that even the pope has given blessing to same-sex marriages). Still, she largely agreed with Goldberg’s point, saying, “I was really saddened by what he said, but the most hateful speech is the most protected speech, and that’s in our Constitution.”

Goldberg then took the fore once more and reiterated her perspective with command, insisting, “When you say to somebody, ‘I don’t like what you said, so I’m going to get your job taken away because you disagree with me,’ for me that’s an issue because it happens to us all the time. That is why, yes, I’m standing up for him.”

Joy Behar, who remained silent throughout most of the discussion, was then encouraged to share her view, and she had a different perspective entirely.

“I think he has mother issues,” she said, earning laughter from her cohosts and the in-studio audience. “His mother is a very accomplished physicist. Super duper accomplished woman. Now, he was probably left alone because she was busy with her career … I’m not a therapist, I just play one on TV, but I think that’s the real issue with the guy. He refers to Taylor Swift as … his teammate’s girlfriend. Another hugely accomplished woman with nothing but disdain for because of mommy. So get a therapist,” Behar said.

The View, weekdays, check local listings