‘The View’: Sunny Hostin Slams White House Correspondents’ Dinner For Giving In To “Bully” Trump By Firing Amber Ruffin As Host

This year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner is guaranteed to be less fun with no comedian helming the annual event. After news broke that Amber Ruffin had been fired from the gig two months after she was confirmed as host, The View debated the White House Correspondents’ Association’s move to pull the plug on her appearance, and largely, the table was not happy about it.

WHCA President Eugene Daniels announced Saturday (March 29) that Ruffin would no longer be hosting the April 26 event; his statement came just days after Ruffin teased her hosting plans on The Daily Beast Podcast, where she said she refused to make equal jokes about both Republicans and Democrats.

“There’s no way I’m gonna be frickin’ doing that, dude,” Ruffin said. “Burns on Trump hurt badly, and then it trickles down to everyone that’s around him, ’cause y’all also guilty,” while adding that those who work with Trump aren’t human and even calling them “kind of a bunch of murderers.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin boldly declared on today’s show that she agreed with the decision to let Ruffin go as host, telling the panel that Ruffin’s remarks about Trump officials being “sub-human” and “a bunch of murderers” would add to “distrust in the press and comes off as kind of a tacit endorsement of what she’s saying” if she were to host.

Right when she finished speaking, Sunny Hostin jumped in to counter, “I disagree.”

“It just seems to me that when you capitulate and give into a bully, that bully will continue bullying you. It’s like the schoolyard bully: If he takes your lunch one day, he’s gonna take your lunch again,” she said. “So this White House has taken control of the White House Correspondents’ Association, many of its duties, including who’s going to be in the press pool.

“I think that you stand united as a press corp and you do things that you’ve always done … She’s a comedian, she’s not a journalist, and it’s a time-honored tradition,” Hostin said, accusing Daniels of making “the wrong call” by firing Ruffin.

Ana Navarro agreed that she was “very disappointed,” while Whoopi Goldberg shared her own view as a fellow comedian.

“The pre-chop of this is just another bad move, in my mind, because we are already seeing people being stopped from saying what they think,” Goldberg said. “One of the great things about being an American is you can say anything, and if you can’t take the heat, then you should not have started this fire.”

The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.