Disney is claiming “The View” is a news program — and critics are calling the media company plain “Goofy.”
Local Houston TV network KTRK-TV, and its parent company, Disney, filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to declare “The View” a “bona fide news” show, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr revealed Saturday.
“Disney argues that The View qualifies as ‘bona fide news’ under the law, comparing itself to Meet The Press or Face The Nation,” Carr posted on X Friday.
The move comes after the FCC launched a probe into the Trump-bashing show in February after it hosted an interview with Texas Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico, potentially violating “equal time” rules.
The “statutory equal opportunities requirement” of the New Deal-era Communications Act of 1934 stipulates a television show that hosts a political candidate must allow his opponent to appear on the program for the same length of time.
The FCC announced in February that it would reinterpret the law to include late-night and daytime talk shows.
News programs are exempt from equal time rules.
Critics say that calling the daytime talk show, which routinely involves its four female hosts screaming over each other, a “bona fide” news program is so outrageous it would cause Pinocchio’s nose to grow for miles on end.
“Disney argues that The View qualifies as ‘bona fide news’ under the law. I stopped there because I was laughing so hard,” X user Nick Mclarty posted.
The FCC chairman asked the public to opine about whether “The View” is a news show, writing “The FCC welcomes your views.”
The program, which is hosted by an all-female panel consisting of Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Ana Navarro, has long used its platform to bash Republicans and President Trump.
Behar recently accused Trump of wanting “toddler white nationalists” in an unhinged discussion, apparently in reference to comments from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz about “Trump babies.”
“When they say ‘more Trump babies,’ what does that mean?” Behar asked on a May 12 broadcast.
Hostin, a longtime Trump basher, chimed in and claimed the term implies “[Trump] wants American-born, white children.”
In a May 14 edition of the program, Goldberg spiraled over Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt’s sudden surge in popularity.
“Just because somebody is famous or is famous for something doesn’t mean they know what’s going on and how you are thinking and how you’re feeling,” Goldberg said without a trace of irony.
“The Sister Act” star regularly refers to the president as “you know who” instead of naming him, and accused the president in April of “destroying the White House,” with his ballroom construction.
“Under FCC case law, tv shows do not qualify as ‘bona fide news’ if their decisions are based on partisan purposes, such as an intention to advance or harm an individual’s candidacy,” Carr wrote in his X post.
Behar said she thinks the administration is deliberately harming Americans during an April discussion about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s policies.
“Sometimes, I feel like they’re trying to kill us,” she said.
