Whoopi Goldberg is sick of ‘relitigating’ Kamala Harris’ election loss: ‘It’s everybody’s fault’

“The View” cohost spoke up during a tense debate about Harris and shifting blame during the election cycle, ahead of the former VP’s new book.

Nearly one year after Vice President Kamala Harris lost the 2024 presidential election to Donald Trump, EGOT-winning Ghost actress Whoopi Goldberg is sick of relitigating the painful past that led to a second-term administration for one of the most controversial politicians in history.

The 69-year-old kicked off Wednesday’s live episode of The View by reflecting on a new excerpt from Harris’ upcoming book 107 Days, which draws its title from the length of time Harris had to run her campaign between President Joe Biden formally stepping down and endorsing her as the Democratic nominee for president and the day Americans headed to the polls in November 2024.

Goldberg said at the Hot Topics table that Harris said, “Democrats were reckless to let President Biden and his wife, Jill, be the only ones deciding if he should run again, and that some Democrats waged a smear campaign against her before she became the nominee,” before asking the cohosts, “What do you think about these revelations?”

Most of the panelists turned to look at conservative cohost and ex-Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was harshly critical of Biden during the election cycle and also called for him to step down during the race.

“I have to say, I did not have Kamala Harris taking the gloves off on my bingo card, but I respect that she wants to set the record straight for the history books,” Griffin, 36, said, praising Harris for raising over $1 billion for her campaign and locking down delegates in 24 hours. “In many ways, she was set up to fail. I’m not saying this was some grand strategy against her, but it’s a rule of thumb in White Houses that presidents and their teams are always looking out for the VP. They don’t want them to take too much of the spotlight, they don’t want them to do better than them. What happened is, often times things she was doing didn’t get credit, when negative things were said about her, there wasn’t pushback for her.”

Griffin said she “dealt with this with [Mike] Pence and with Trump when I worked for him” and that it’s just “something that happens” in the political sphere.

The former communications professional estimated that, “the glaring signs were there that Donald Trump was going to win. Two-thirds of the country said they felt like the country was on the wrong track, and they wanted a different direction,” and that there are only two options for political parties in the United States. She added that Biden’s “headwinds” and Harris’ inability to separate herself from them also contributed to the 2024 election loss.

Sara Haines praised Harris for “raising the morale” of the country, and compared that kind of hope to the feeling that President Barack Obama ran on ahead of the 2008 election

“Being the President of the United States is the most consequential job in the world. If you think someone is going to be tired or not be able to handle it, you put your best person in,” Haines continued. “I’d say it was always up to the people around them. I didn’t know until her remarks how separated the vice president and the [resident’s teams are. I think this country deserves better. This isn’t an ego trip where someone gets credit and someone doesn’t. You’re a team, or you’re not a team.”

Goldberg admittedly felt that Biden “messed up” in the first debate against Trump in June 2024, but “the divisive for me, is if the Democrats had kept their mouths shut and took care of this in house, as opposed to making it a public spectacle, I think people would’ve had a better feel about it.”

“They turned against the president,” legal expert Sunny Hostin said, while Griffin replied to Goldberg by pointing out that “ageism is a horrible thing, but there’s also just biology and science and stats” that support her suggestion that older politicians leave the door open for legislative chaos — like, as she cited, five Democratic lawmakers whose deaths in office allowed “consequential legislation that impacts every American” to pass from the opposing side.

Goldberg then continued, “But you know, you can’t say that to a sitting president who’s busting his ass trying to keep everything going and moving,” she said. “People love to go back and say what we should’ve done. We should’ve run a better campaign. People wanted to hear what they heard, they got what they wanted, I don’t understand why we’ve got to relitigate it. It happened, and now we’re all sitting in it. It’s everybody’s fault.”

Griffin said that “voters should have a say,” and that political parties shouldn’t be the only entity that has a say in who runs.

Leading up to the 2024 election, The View played an integral role, having hosted an interview with Harris that many cited as a key breaking point in her campaign when she told Hostin that “not a thing that comes to mind” in terms of what she’d do differently from Biden’s presidency.

“Not because I didn’t think the vice president was qualified to be president,” he clarified to the cohosts. “She is, she’s qualified to be president of the United States of America. I was surprised because they went the sexist route, the whole route. ‘This is a woman,’ she’s this, she’s that, really, I’ve never seen as successful and consistent [of a] campaign undercutting the notion that a woman couldn’t lead the country — and a woman of mixed race.”