Witness to Nazi Protest weighs in on whether The View apology to Turning Point USA was sufficient
KTTH radio show host Jason Rantz discusses his experience outside the convention center and what he thinks of The View’s apology to Turning Point USA.
ABC News' "The View" co-host Sara Haines apologized to Turning Point USA on Wednesday after inaccurately tying the conservative group to neo-Nazis, but a key witness to the ordeal believes Whoopi Goldberg should have been the one to speak up.
Fox News Digital first reported a letter sent from Turning Point USA that gave "The View" until Wednesday to retract comments made by Goldberg and colleague Joy Behar tying neo-Nazi demonstrators at the TPUSA Student Action Summit last weekend in Tampa, Florida, to the conservative group, or face legal action. ABC News obliged, but conservative talk radio host Jason Rantz --who was a speaker at the TPUSA event and witnessed the protest -- does not think "The View" went far enough with its attempt to make peace.
"I thought it was rather a curious selection to have Sara Haines read the apology, that was written by lawyers for ‘The View,’ and not necessarily the people who were responsible for the commentary. Whoopi Goldberg should have been the one who apologized. The bulk of the complaints go toward comments that she made, she oftentimes speaks completely out of turn coming through a lens of misinformation. She’s known for that, and she should be the one to step up and say, ‘Look I apologize, I screwed up on this," Rantz told Fox News Digital.
"If you’re going to make the defamatory statements, and just put out the falsehoods, it should be on you to walk them back in a sincere way," he said. "I imagine that the news division over at ABC is disgusted when instances like this happen because it certainly plays into a perspective of a lot of folks on the right that ABC, in general, is biased against conservatives and conservative thought."
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Instead of Goldberg, Haines was dispatched to read a statement intended to put out the fire that had resulted in ABC News receiving a cease-and-desist letter from TPUSA.
"On Monday we talked about the fact that there were openly neo-Nazi demonstrators outside the Florida Student Action Summit of the Turning Point USA group. We want to make clear that these demonstrators were gathered outside the event and that they were not invited or endorsed by Turning Point USA," Haines said as Goldberg sat silently.
"A Turning Point USA spokesman said the group ‘100 percent condemns those ideologies’ and said Turning Point USA security tried to remove the neo-Nazis from the area but could not because they were on public property," Haines continued. "Also, Turning Point USA wanted us to clarify that this was a Turning Point USA Summit, and not a Republican Party event. So, we apologize for anything we said that may have been unclear on these points."
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As the TPUSA event was in session over the week, Rantz heard there was a protest outside the venue and went to check out the situation. He quickly noticed that Turning Point USA organizers and event attendees condemned the neo-Nazi activists on the spot.
"There was a small group of Nazis, of White supremacists. They have various offensive flags, and signs depicting Jewish people via physical stereotypes and as well as a swastika on a flag," Rantz said.
"They were screaming to the crowd very anti-Semitic and anti-Black statements. What I saw was a whole bunch of people coming out from the conference condemning the entire group of White supremacists," Rantz continued. "I know that Turning Point USA staff was out there as well, they were trying to get the folks to leave, but it’s public space, so the protesters didn’t have to leave."
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Rantz, who chronicled the protest on social media, said he witnessed TPUSA staffers telling event attendees not to give the extremists attention and to move along, but that is a far cry from what "The View" initially reported.
On Monday, Behar started the ordeal that Goldberg escalated during the first segment of "The View."
"Neo-Nazis were out there in the front of the conference with anti-Semitic slurs and, you know, the Nazi swastika and a picture of a so-called Jewish person with exaggerated features, just like [Joseph] Goebbels did during the Third Reich. It’s the same thing, right out of that same playbook," Behar said.
Later on the program, "The View" read an on-air legal disclaimer to inform viewers that Turning Point USA condemned the neo-Nazis protestors who had "nothing to do" with the organization.
"But you let them in, and you knew what they were," Goldberg said before the panelists were forced to read another disclaimer and explain the neo-Nazis were "outside protestors" and TPUSA didn’t let them in.
"My point was metaphorical," Goldberg claimed.
The following day, Turning Point USA issued a scathing letter to ABC News executives, with a deadline of July 27 for a retraction and apology.
"The false statements of fact intentionally made during The View’s July 25th segment were unquestionably harmful to TPUSA’s reputation and brought the organization and its student affiliates into disrepute with the public, potential donors, and current and future business partners, posing a significant financial loss to the organization," the letter addressed to ABC News New York bureau chief Joshua Hoyos and ABC assistant chief counsel Ian Rosenberg said.
After Wednesday's on-air comments by Haines, the verified Twitter account for Turning Point USA wrote, "Whoopi remained silent and has not retracted her comments that TPUSA 'metaphorically’ embraced ‘Nazis.’"
Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, speaks during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida, US, on Friday, July 22, 2022. (Tristan Wheelock/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Rantz said Behar, Goldberg and the other panelist initially discussed the ordeal in the "exact" way he hoped would not happen.
"Which is to try to ascribe the Nazis to the positions of conservatives and certainly to the positions of the conservatives at the conference. There was no connection whatsoever to those who attended the Student Action Summit and the folks who were protesting," Rantz said. "Part of the reason why I wanted to cover this… is because I wanted to set the record straight knowing how some media outlets and some bad-faith pundits and talking heads would take this. I wanted to show there was no connection whatsoever."
However, the conservative talk radio host was not surprised when he heard how "The View" covered the protest before a series of clarifications and walkbacks.
"I was like, ‘Well, of course, this is what they do, this is how they operate,’" he said. "They don’t bother to do any research whatsoever because they go into these conversations with a bias against conservatives already, so it’s easy for them to justify making that kind of connection, even though it’s not based in reality."
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Rantz is not even positive the protestors were actual Nazis, although he stipulated he had no evidence to that end.
"I was awfully suspicious that this was staged with the intent of getting left-wing outlets to claim that there was some sort of connection. Obviously ‘The View’ tried to make that connection with Turning Point. I don’t have any evidence to specifically point to, it was just a feeling I had," Rantz said.
"As a gay Jew I have not gone to any of these rallies in the past, so I don’t quite know what the messaging is supposed to be, but it was just very on-the-nose and, I suppose, racist White Supremacists are like that, but there were statements made from the group that just seemed like it was scripted out with the intent of getting picked up to go after conservatives."
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