Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, ‘Roiled’ by ‘The View’ Constantly Attacking Trump: ABC Execs Ask Co-Hosts To Focus More on Celebrity News

The all-female panel of the anti-Trump talk show “The View,” on Disney-owned ABC, is reportedly getting word from the bosses at ABC News to “tone down” their coverage of the 47th president. This comes after Disney in December settled with President Trump for $16 million after an ABC News personality and former Clinton operative, George Stephanopoulos, falsely and repeatedly stated that Mr. Trump had been “found liable for rape.”However, on Saturday, the president directly threatened Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, suggesting he may sue ABC News again for reporting that he personally was getting a “free” jet from Qatar and would take the jet with him after he left the presidency. The jet was actually gifted to the Pentagon and the president says he will not take it with him.Mr. Trump is also in settlement conversations with Paramount over his $20 billion lawsuit regarding CBS News’s October 2024 interview with Vice President Harris that aired on “60 Minutes.” Paramount’s critical merger with Skydance is being held up by controversy over the interview. Paramount is expected to pay $50 million to $75 million to settle the suit, and CBS will also need to resolve a “news distortion” investigation of CBS News over the interview, which could result in a fine.On Wednesday, in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump directly called out the chairman, Brian Roberts, of Comcast, which owns NBC, regarding Mr. Trump’s displeasure with a NBC News White House reporter, Peter Alexander, who asked him about the Qatari jet.In this hostile climate, it appears that the executives at Disney are getting nervous about the co-hosts of “The View” and their anti-Trump rhetoric. The Daily Beast reports that the co-hosts’ “constant focus on Trump and politics” has “roiled” Mr. Iger.And so it fell to the president of ABC News, Almin Karamehmedovi, to meet with the co-hosts — Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin — and the show’s executive producer, Brian Teta. According to the Daily Beast, the ABC News boss suggested that the talk show “needed to broaden its conversations beyond its predominant focus on politics.” Mr. Karamehmedovic suggested the show should focus more on having celebrities on as guests, as he noted those episodes tend to have higher ratings. The message to “tone down” the rhetoric was “not framed as an edict,” a source told the Daily Beast, but instead as a “suggestion.” The co-hosts appear to have rebuffed the idea and insisted on their mission to denounce Mr. Trump. Ms. Navarro reportedly told Mr. Karamehmedovic that she believes the show’s audience wants their opinion on politics and the Trump administration.Another person familiar with the meeting told the outlet that the co-hosts told Mr. Karamehmedovic, “This is what our audience wants. Isn’t it gonna look kind of bad if we’re all of a sudden not talking about politics?”The resistance to the suggestion seems not to have stayed in the meeting. Ms. Navarro reportedly spoke to Ms. Iger during an advertising event and expressed gratitude for being allowed to speak on the show without corporate interference. Mr. Iger responded by stating that he supports “The View” but also suggested that the show should tone down its political content. “The View” has long criticized Mr. Trump, stretching back to his first term and his time out of office. Ms. Goldberg made no secret of her disdain for Mr. Trump after he left office in 2021, making a vow not to refer to him by his name. Instead, she frequently referred to him as “you know who.”The rest of the hosts have not been any friendlier. After the 2024 election, Ms. Hostin declared that she was “profoundly disturbed” by the results, which she said were a “referendum of cultural resentment in the country.” Ms. Navarro, a former Republican operative turned liberal commentator who wound up volunteering for Ms. Harris’s campaign, has said Mr. Trump is not a “good human being” and is instead “apocalyptic.”Meanwhile, Ms. Behar, perhaps the most liberal of the far-left panel, claimed in April that the president is “trying to destroy the country” and create “chaos” so that he can implement martial law and become a dictator. “The View” has traditionally had one conservative member, usually a younger woman, but women in that seat who’ve persisted in their conservative views — such as Elizabeth Hasselbeck and Meghan McCain — left the show under a cloud and later said they were bullied. The bullying of Ms. Hasselbeck by a former “View” co-host, Rosie O’Donnell, who’d also famously mocked Mr. Trump’s hair on the show, made national headlines. The current host hired to be the conservative voice at the table, Ms. Griffin, worked in the first Trump administration but has since become a staunch critic of the president.As the co-hosts have a history of bashing Mr. Trump and Republicans, their producers have, at times, worked overtime to protect the show from lawsuits by forcing them to read “legal notes,” to provide comments from the lawyers of the subject of their commentary or to make corrections so as to avoid defamation lawsuits. The co-hosts have giggled and rolled their eyes while reading the notes.ABC News did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment.Like Paramount, Disney is trying to avoid having its news operation enrage Mr. Trump and cause damage to the larger company. Last year, after Governor DeSantis went to war over Disney’s opposition to a Florida law restricting sexual content from being taught to young children in Florida schools, and after several big-budget Disney movies bombed after audiences objected to gay intimacy being gratuitously added to plotlines, Mr. Iger said that Disney needed to get out of politics for politics’ sake and focus on entertainment. A veteran media reporter, Matthew Belloni, said at the time of the Stephanopoulos settlement that the case was probably winnable for Disney as the president would have to show the comment was made with “actual malice” — the high bar required in defamation cases involving public figures. The case was set to take place in a court in Florida, where juries are perceived as unfriendly to the media, with a judge who was appointed by Governor DeSantis. Disney was also reportedly nervous about a potentially embarrassing discovery process. The settlement seems not to have impacted the thinking of the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, when he launched an investigation into corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion policies at Disney and ABC.

Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, ‘Roiled’ by ‘The View’ Constantly Attacking Trump: ABC Execs Ask Co-Hosts To Focus More on Celebrity News

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