Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro couldn’t quite see eye-to-eye on this morning’s episode of The View, taking shots at one another in a circular conversation about Kanye West and his recent appearance on Alex Jones‘ Infowars show, where he praised Hitler. While Hostin said West is mentally ill and needs help, Navarro snapped, proclaiming she was sick of hearing excuses for the rapper’s concerning behavior.
While discussing West’s comments yesterday (Dec. 1), Hostin described the Yeezy designer as “an antisemite and anti-Black,” but added, “Kanye is clearly a sick person,” later accusing figures like Alex Jones, Donald Trump and white supremacist Nick Fuentes of “exploiting” West’s “mental illness.”
As she continued, “that’s horrible,” Navarro audibly sighed and cut in to say, “Can I tell you something? I cannot stand conflating his mental illness with his antisemitism and his bigotry, and just how horrible he is,” while Hostin insisted, “I’m not conflating it.”
Navarro replied, “I know, but I think there’s a lot of people—” while Hostin cut her off, wondering aloud, “Can someone up his meds?”
Navarro, exasperated, told her co-host, “Fine, but listen, Sunny, he’s got a whole bunch of people around him all the time, who should stop taking the eggs from the golden goose and should do something about his mental illness. And I don’t wanna excuse— I am tired of excusing his antisemitism.”
Hostin continued to insist, “I’m not excusing his antisemitism,” while Navarro said she wasn’t pointing fingers at Hostin, but told her, “there’s people who do excuse his antisemitism and his bigotry and the hateful things he says, including about his own race, because of his mental illness.”
“Listen. You’ve got money, you’ve got people. You’re mentally ill? Go get help,” Navarro said. “But I am not excusing the horrible things that you say.”
Later in the segment, Joy Behar assured Navarro that the panel was “not conflating mental illness,” but said, “In Kayne’s case, he is maybe a little whacko,” to which Navarro replied, “I’m not saying we’re doing it. I’m saying there’s a lot of people who excuse Kanye, who don’t wanna condemn it because he’s mentally ill. I’m saying, I’m not giving you a pass.”
Hostin agreed, telling her, “There’s no excuse for it,” and adding, “no one at this table is excusing him, but I’m surprised that people would. He’s been so antisemitic, he’s been so anti-Black, but he’s also been so mentally ill. And I am surprised that none of his family members have come and helped him.”
Behar ended the back-and-forth with a call to action, telling the panel and the audience that regardless of where hate is coming from, the right thing to do is speak up and stop it.
“The only thing you can do is speak out against it. If anybody says something anti-Black, antisemitic, anti-gay, whatever. You speak out against that, you nip it in the bud. You don’t allow it to proliferate,” Behar said. And speak out against it they did.
The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC. Watch this morning’s segment in the video above.
