On today’s episode of The View, co-host Whoopi Goldberg went after Florida lawmaker Matt Gaetz for using time that could have otherwise been spent passing meaningful legislation on something redundant and irrelevant to the lives of most Americans.
This week in Congress, Gaetz proposed an amendment which would ensure that that all meetings of the House Judiciary Committee begin with the Pledge of Allegiance. Congress already says the Pledge every morning upon arrival to the House floor, but despite pushback from House Democrats who felt that a second recitation of the Pledge was unnecessary, the proposal was passed.
“This is the Judiciary Committee, right? So wouldn’t it be a better show of patriotism to be working on issues like police violence, mass shootings, prison reforms?” Goldberg asked the Hot Topics panel.
She continued, “The people of the United States are not fooling around! You wasted everybody’s time suggesting people do what they already do! What is this waste of time?”
Joy Behar also weighed in on why Gaetz would propose such a thing in the first place, saying, “Samuel Johnson, who was a famed literary figure, said in [1775], ‘Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.’ So the question is, what exactly is Gaetz seeking refuge from?”
She added, “In other words, oh, we have to do the Pledge of Allegiance because he’s hiding all of his sins, and we know what they are, one of them is that he was for the insurrection. He has been accused of sexual trafficking, which he has now denied. He’s an election denier. They always say, wave the flag, rally around the flag. And that’s what he’s doing.”
The conversation also led co-host Sunny Hostin to criticize the idea of American exceptionalism and offering allegiance to a country without allowing for the idea that you can be patriotic but also recognize America is flawed.
“The problem that I have is with this narrative of American exceptionalism,” she said. Hostin said that she dutifully recited the Pledge of Allegiance up until college when she took an African American history class.
“I started realizing the actual Pledge of Allegiance doesn’t apply to a lot of our citizens,” she explained. “This country hasn’t met this dream of being exceptional.”
To round out the conversation from every angle, Alyssa Farah Griffin added, “Loving your country is not saying your country’s perfect. I love this big, beautiful, flawed nation.”
The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.
