Multiple sources shared details with the Daily Beast about a meeting in which the ABC News president delivered a message that left the co-hosts unnerved.
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ABC
Disney and ABC News have asked the hosts of The View to tone down their political rhetoric, multiple sources told the Daily Beast.
Since President Donald Trump’s election in 2024, the panel of co-hosts on The View—Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin—have consistently criticized Trump administration officials and policies.
But its constant focus on Trump and politics seems to have roiled the network’s top bosses, including Disney CEO Bob Iger and ABC News President Almin Karamehmedovic.
Almin Karamehmedovic lights the Empire State Building in Partnership with ABC News in Celebration of Nightline’s 45th Anniversary at The Empire State Building on March 28, 2025 in New York City.Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Empire State Realty Trust
Karamehmedovic convened a meeting with The View‘s executive producer Brian Teta and its hosts, and suggested the panel needed to broaden its conversations beyond its predominant focus on politics, two sources familiar with the meeting said. Karamehmedovic highlighted episodes with celebrity guests that he said were highly rated, one source said, and encouraged them to lean into such coverage moving forward.
The move was not framed as an edict, one source said, but the suggestion alone rankled the hosts. The group pushed back forcefully, with hosts like Navarro noting the show’s audience routinely seeks out its perspective on politics, especially when the administration’s radical attempts to upend the government can potentially affect their daily lives.
One source familiar with the meeting characterized the hosts as telling their boss, “‘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?’”
Ultimately, the women found the requests “silly” and that “they were just going to keep doing their thing.”
Ellen Pompeo is a guest on “The View” on March 17, 2025.Al Drago/ABC via Getty Images
Still, the conversation continued to stay at top of mind for at least one of the co-hosts. During Disney’s Upfront presentation day to advertisers last week, an annual glitzy gathering where media companies seek to woo brands to advertise with their shows, Navarro had a direct conversation with Iger, according to multiple sources.
Navarro thanked Iger for allowing the hosts to continue doing their jobs in a politically turbulent environment, the sources said. Iger confirmed he supported the show—but he also reaffirmed that the show needed to tone down its political rhetoric, the sources said.
The conversation made clear the suggestion to tone down the politics went all the way to the top, the sources said.
ABC News did not comment, and a Disney spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Navarro did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Bob Iger at the Los Angeles Premiere Of Marvel Studios’ “Thunderbolts*” at Dolby Theatre on April 28, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images
Another source familiar with the matter said ABC will “constantly have conversations with talent based on viewer feedback, and this instance was no different,” suggesting the show’s viewers have indicated that they want the show to be less political.
Despite suggestions otherwise by ABC’s top brass, the political coverage appears not to have affected the show’s ratings. The show was the No. 1 among daytime network talk shows and news programs during 2025’s first quarter, according to TheWrap, beating time slot competitor The Faulkner Focus on Fox Newsin both total viewers and women ages 25-54, its chief advertiser-focused demographic, throughout the quarter.
Even earlier this month, it maintained that No. 1 title, beating competitors like NBC’s TODAY Third Hour and TODAY with Jenna & Friends during the week of May 5, according to ABC.
The executives’ efforts to push The View in a less political direction highlight the current difficult circumstances facing media organizations as Trump and his administration set their sights on bending them to their will over critical coverage.
Trump got Disney to pay his presidential library $15 million and $1 million in legal fees in December when he sued the network and anchor George Stephanoupolous over an interview that mischaracterized a verdict that found him liable for sexual abuse as opposed to rape. Disney made the decision in part to avoid brand damage and risk stripping press freedom protections across the industry should it have lost at trial, according toThe New York Times.
Trump has also been at legal war with CBS and its parent company Paramount Global, suing the two for $20 billion over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. CBS has called the lawsuit baseless, but as Paramount’s controlling shareholder Shari Redstone seeks to merge the company with David Ellison’s Skydance Media, the company has entered into mediation talks with Trump to secure a settlement.
Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr, an outspoken supporter of Trump, has also launched an investigation into Disney and ABC over its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, and said the 60 Minutes interview would factor into the FCC’s review of the merger. And on Wednesday, Trump lashed out at an NBC News reporter and suggested NBC’s parent company Comcast “ought to be investigated.”
“Bob Iger writes a check for $15 million and then the FCC opens an investigation into DEI? What are they thinking?” one source said. “If anybody could stand up to Trump, it’s Bob Iger, and he already decided not to.”
The View, the long-running opinion talk show that became creator Barbara Walters’ crowning achievement in her celebrated run at ABC News, has long been a major player in the political media landscape. Democrats like Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Harris have flocked to the show’s glass-adorned table to appeal to its predominantly female audience, and arun of Democrats and Republicans appearing on the show in 2019 promptedTheNew York Times Magazine to label it the “the most important TV show in America.”
Pundits speculated whether Harris’ admission at the table that she wouldn’t have done anything differently from President Joe Biden cost her the 2024 election, highlighting the show’s political relevance.
But just as common as its friendly approach to Democrats has been its vocal criticism of Trump and his policies. The show railed against the once-View regular—Trump appeared on the show more than a dozen times before effectively shunning it ahead of the 2016 election—and Goldberg warned last year his reelection could put the U.S. “in danger.”
But Trump won the election—a month after calling its panel “degenerates”—prompting the show to figure out its next move. The Daily Beast reported at the time that it planned to invite Trump to the table, though it had no plans to add an explicitly pro-Trump panelist.
Despite the conversations with Iger and Karamehmedovic, the hosts have continued to keep politics in focus this month. The women conducted a lengthy interview with former President Joe Biden and former first lady Jill Biden ahead of a book questioning his mental decline—though it was the Biden team that approached the show about the conversation, a Biden spokesperson told the Daily Beast.
Its “Hot Topics” segment on Tuesday also featured Behar questioning “when is Jake Tapper gonna write a book about the cognitive decline of the person who is in charge right now,” and Wednesday’s episode had a segment railing against “puppy killer” Homeland Security Kristi Noem for her bungled definition of the legal concept of habeas corpus.
But hints of a balancing act have emerged. During a robust discussion last week over the question of whether Democrats needed to focus on the question of Biden’s decline or move forward to fight Trump, Griffin appeared to strike a more balanced tone by highlighting how Trump’s low approval numbers were ahead of the Democratic Party.
“This table spends a lot of time criticizing Donald Trump and a lot of it is very valid and needs to happen, but it’s a fact his approval rating is 39 percent,” she said on Friday. “However, Democrats’ is 27 percent. People felt gaslit and lied to.”
That episode continued with a panel conversation about a Reddit post that asked whether Mother’s Day cards were appropriate for women who consider pets to be their “children.”
Detained children line up in the cafeteria at the Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas, on 10 September 2014. Photograph: Eric Gay/AP
The Trump administration is trying to end a cornerstone immigration policy that requires the government to provide basic rights and protections to child immigrants in its custody.
The protections, which are drawn from a 1997 consent decree known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, limit the amount of time children can be detained by immigration officials. It also requires the government to provide children in its custody with adequate food, water and clean clothes.
The administration’s move to terminate the Flores agreement was long anticipated. In a court motion filed Thursday, the justice department argued that the Flores agreement should be “completely” terminated, claiming it has incentivized unauthorized border crossings and “prevented the federal government from effectively detaining and removing families”.
Donald Trump also tried to end these protections during his first term, making very similar arguments.
Ice arrests at immigration courts across the US stirring panic: ‘It’s terrifying’
Read more
The move to end protections follows a slew of actions by the Trump administration that target children, including restarting the practice of locking up children along with their parents in family detention. Immigration advocacy groups have alleged in a class-action lawsuit filed earlier this month that unaccompanied children are languishing in government facilities after the administration unveiled policies making it exceedingly difficult for family members in the US to take custody of them. The president and lawmakers have also sought to cut off unaccompanied children’s access to legal services and make it harder for families in detention to seek legal aid.
“Eviscerating the rudimentary protections that these children have is unconscionable,” said Mishan Wroe, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law. “At this very moment, babies and toddlers are being detained in family detention, and children all over the country are being detained and separated from their families unnecessarily.”
The effort to suspend the Flores agreement “bears the Trump administration’s hallmark disregard for the rule of law – and for the wellbeing of toddlers who have done no wrong”, said Faisal al-Juburi of the Texas-based legal non-profit Raices. “This administration would rather enrich private prison contractors with the $45bn earmarked for immigrant detention facilities in the House’s depraved spending bill than to uphold basic humanitarian protections for babies.”
The Trump administration in 2019 asked a judge to dissolve the Flores Settlement Agreement, but its motion was struck down. During the Biden administration, a federal judge agreed to partially lift oversight protections at the Department of Health and Human Services, but the agreement is still in place at the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies.
“Children who seek refuge in our country should be met with open arms – not imprisonment, deprivation and abuse,” said Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
The settlement is named for Jenny Flores, a 15-year-old girl who fled civil war in El Salvador and was part of a class-action lawsuit alleging widespread mistreatment of children in custody in the 1980s.
Since the settlement agreement was reached in 1997, lawyers and advocates have successfully sued the government several times to end the mistreatment of immigrant children. In 2018, attorneys sued after discovering unaccompanied children had been administered psychotropic medication without informed consent.
In 2024, a court found that CBP had breached the agreement when it detained children and families at open-air detention sites at the US southern border without adequate access to sanitation, medical care, food, water or blankets. In some cases, children were forced to seek refuge in portable toilets from the searing heat and bitter cold.
A meeting in the Oval Office turned sour after President Donald Trump ambushed South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa with claims of a “white genocide.” But one white man standing in the back of the room stood up to Trump, and though the world might not recognize him, he continues to play a vital role in mending the countries’ shaky relationship.
Growing tensions between the two countries began after Trump’s reelection. That’s when the president cut off trade to South Africa and recently gave 59 white South Africans— better known as Afrikaners— refugee status, as we previously reported. Trump falsely argued the Afrikaners were being targeted based on their race, but in fact the amount of Black murders in the country drastically outweigh that of white killings.
The issue comes down to South Africa’s immigration and crime problems. Ramaphosa came to Washington, D.C. in hopes of refocusing his relationship with America and also get Trump’s help tackling crime.
He even brought famous guests with him to cool off the temperature in the room: Two well-known golfers and— most importantly— the second richest man in South Africa. Johann Peter Rupert is one of 22 billionaires on the entire continent of Africa and one of only seven billionaires in South Africa, according to Forbes’ 2025 report.
The 74-year-old is an international business mogul, so his appearance with Ramaphosa holds more weight than you can imagine.
Rupert got real with Trump after President Ramaphosa’s attempt to refocus the conversation to technological and trade needs was disregarded. While the president perpetuated claims that Afrikaners— the most privileged ethnic group in South Africa— are being targeted, Rupert echoed Ramaphosa’s words saying, “We have too many deaths, but it’s across the board.” The billionaire continued, “It’s not only white farmers… We need technological help.”
Experts told PBS that although white farmers have been murdered in South Africa, those killings account for less than one percent of the total 27,000 annual nationwide report— most of them being murders of native, Black South Africans. “The idea of a ‘white genocide’ taking place in South Africa is completely false,” said Gareth Newham, head of a justice and violence prevention program at the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa.
Rupert even added that he’s building cottages for his grandchildren, but despite his wealth and his status as an Afrikaner, he doesn’t feel unsafe. “I often go to bed without locking the door,” he said. The 74-year-old even tried to level with Trump and Vice President JD Vance saying South Africa’s immigration and gang issues are more pressing than the fake genocide Trump continues to claim. (snip-news video on the page)
Inside the White House Meeting
What the public saw was only the meeting before the two leaders got together in a private discussion. But according to New York Times reporter, Jon Elligon, who was in the Oval Office during the media blitz, the pre-meeting not going as planned could lead to further tensions.
“The [pre]meeting essentially turned into an ambush of the South African president,” Elligon said. “It was very tense and it broke down quickly.” According to him, if there’s any hope of patching the relationship between the two countries, “a lot of it is going to depend on whether the South African delegation can successfully get Trump to not focus on the Afrikaner issue anymore.”
President Cyril Ramaphosa meets with President Trump in the Oval Office on May 21. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In a shocking moment during President Trump‘s meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday, Trump requested that videos be displayed purporting to show evidence of violence against white people in the country.
The big picture: Trump, who cut all foreign assistance to South Africa, has embraced the false accusations of genocide against white South Africans as justification for granting them refugee status in the U.S.
A South African court in February dismissed claims of a “white genocide” asnot real.
Driving the news: In a stunning scene reminiscent of the Oval Office showdown with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump asked for the lights to be dimmed before playing the videos.
While Trump watched the video, Ramaphosa looked away, appearing uncomfortable.
At one point, speaking over the video, Trump said the screen was displaying “burial sites.” Ramaphosa inquired where the scene was located, adding, “This I’ve never seen.”
Later on, Trump paged through articles from the “last few days” while repeating, “death, death, death.”
Catch up quick: In the question that preceded the video display, a reporter asked Trump what it would take for him to be convinced there was no genocide in South Africa — an inquiry Ramaphosa answered.
“It will take President Trump listening to the voices of South Africans,” Ramaphosa said.
Trump jumped in, saying there were “thousands of stories” and “documentaries.”
“It has to be responded to,” he said before the footage began.
Context: The video played in the Oval Office featured the voice of Julius Malema, a firebrand politician and leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, who was ejected from Parliament.
Ramaphosa clarified that the utterances in the footage were not “government policy,” saying, “We have a multiparty democracy in South Africa that allows people to express themselves.”
South Africa’s Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen — who is white — reiterated Ramaphosa’s point, emphasizing that the two people in the video are opposition leaders. He said his party, the Democratic Alliance, chose to join forces with Ramaphosa’s “to keep those people out of power.”
Trump interjected, “You do allow them to take land … and then when they take the land, they kill the white farmer, and when they kill the white farmer, nothing happens to them.”
South Africa recently passed the Expropriation Act, which allows the government to take some land and redistribute it as part of a long-running effort to lessen the racial and economic disparities created by apartheid.
Ramaphosa acknowledged there is “criminality” in the country — but said the majority of people killed have been Black people.
Trump claimed the “farmers are not Black” and said, without evidence, that people were being killed “in large numbers” and were decapitated. He repeatedly lashed out at reporters, saying, “The fake news in this country doesn’t talk about that.”
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
May 22, 1894 Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, was imprisoned in Illinois for his role in the Pullman Palace Car Company strike and boycott, which had stalled most rail traffic west of Detroit. Read more about the Pullman strike
May 22, 1968 Federal marshals entered Boston’s Arlington Street Unitarian-Universalist Church to arrest Robert Talmanson, who had been convicted of refusing induction into the U.S. Armed Forces. He had been offered sanctuary there by the leaders of the church who shared his opposition to the Vietnam War. When the marshals tried to remove him, access to their car was blocked by 200-300 nonviolent sanctuary supporters. Draft resister Robert Talmanson dragged by authorities from Arlington Street Church.
May 22, 1978 Four thousand protesters occupied the site of the Trident nuclear submarine base in Bangor, Washington. The base was built for the maintenance and resupply of Ohio-class submarines. Though built as part of the U.S. nuclear deterrent, they were perceived by some as giving the U.S. a nuclear first-strike capability with their ability to each deliver 24 missiles with multiple warheads from very close to the borders of other countries. The 14 vessels are at sea 2/3 of the time and can travel as deeply as 800 feet for a time limited only by its food supply. Read more about Ground Zero
May 22, 2001 Delegates from 127 countries formally voted approval of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPS), a treaty calling for the initial elimination of 12 of the most dangerous manmade chemicals, nine of which are pesticides. POPS are often toxic at very low levels, resist degradation and thus persist for decades or longer, because they become concentrated in living tissue, are readily spread by atmospheric and ocean currents.Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson, lauding the agreement, said, “. . . we have to go further. Dangerous substances must be replaced by harmless ones step by step. If there is the least suspicion that new chemicals have dangerous characteristics it is better to reject them.” POPS background
So as many may have read here we recently took the car to the Ford dealership for an oil change. On the way there the engine light came on. Ron had noticed the car was running rough when first started. I had not noticed as I thought the thing always sounded like it needed a new muffler. But when they took the car back they came and told Ron that it needed a new engine for $10 grand. Ron did not fall for it and after three hours drove it home.
So on Monday Ron called the mechanic that works from his home or will come to yours. He said to bring it over Tuesday morning. I followed Ron over because we did not know how bad the car was and if he might need to keep it. He had six cars in his driveway. He moved one out and had Ron drive our car in its place. He had a tablet that he plugged into the car and it told him everything also he could control the car from it. The dealership wanted $360 to do what he did for free. He showed us how the #1 plug was not firing. That is why it sounded rough. He shut it off and the car smoothed out. I asked if we needed to leave it, and he said no it was a quick and easy fix, replace the plugs. So I left, he and Ron went out to get the plugs. He put them on his account so they would be cheaper and Ron paid for them. So $40 dollars for plugs.
He then put them in and had Ron drive it for 5 to 10 minutes. Put it on the diagnostic on it and it showed all plugs firing. He did say it might foul again and if it did then it was the valve cover gasket that would need to be replaced. So Ron asked how much he owed for the repair and the guy said $80 dollars. Ron was stunned. He had spent hours in the sun doing this for only $80. Ron gave him $100. I figured that was smart. The guy did great by us and took the car right away. We might need him again. Plus the dealership charged us nearly $500 to do the test and change the oil. This driveway mechanic did the diagnosis for free and changed the plugs for $80 plus the $20 tip Ron wanted him to have. Hugs
So first I thank all of you who read and responded to the post about how the dealership was trying to extort my 70 yr old husband into giving them the car and either buying a $10,000 engine for a 7-year-old car, or trying to force him into buying a set of hybrids they have not been able to sell … the 1.5 hybrid engine which no one wants. I learned a lot from each of you. I am clueless about engines.
A couple of years ago when the dealership smashed the front of our car due to a worker taking it for the butler service that we paid for that touched up the paint and applied a new clear coat, they wanted us to take one of the 1.5 engine hybrids. We wanted to have the same 2.0 engine we had only in the hybrid model. However they had a three-year waiting list for them. They dicked us around for nearly five months with each call telling us how they could put us in one of those stuck on the lot. We did not give in.
So everyone knows how they tried to get Ron to leave the car. I did not realize until today they asked that while Ron was in the service line. The guy took the car information and then told Ron they would gladly take him home he shouldn’t wait. Ron told them he wanted only an oil change so it shouldn’t take much time. They then pulled the thing of making him wait two hours then coming to tell him the engine was blown and needed to be replaced, so they would take him home. Ron at that time told them he drove it in and he would drive it home. I learned today that he told the service rep, “See those windows? They will be iced over and blocked by 8 feet of snow before I leave my car here. Bring it out to me as I am driving it home”.
It still took them an hour to return the car to him. They claimed not to have done anything other than hook the diagnostics thing to it despite Ron telling them not to. They took $100 off the price because Ron told them not to do it, still they charged us $260 for the diagnostic. All they claimed to have done is the oil change and rotate the tires along with checking fluids. It took over three hours.
Which makes what I am going to write next make them even more sinister. So Monday Ron called the guy that fixes cars at his home on his driveway or comes to your home with his fully equipped van. He told Ron to bring it over on the next day, Tuesday morning. We did, I followed Ron to his home. He had six vehicles in his driveway but he moved a car out and put ours in his driveway.
He had a tablet with programs that could diagnose the car issues. He showed us how the cylinders were firing. #2, #3, #4 were firing normally. He shut # 1 off and even I could hear how the car smoothed out. I just never noticed it before. The number 1 plug was not working well, firing only a bit of the time. I got panicked. Then he told us that it looked to him that the car needed the plugs changed. He asked if we noticed smoke or other stuff and we had not.
Ron sent me home and he and the guy went and got the four new plugs. The guy put them on his account so we would get his discount and Ron paid for them. So they were $10 dollars apiece and it cost us around that price. Then he took the plugs out and put the new ones in. Then he checked it on his tablet and showed Ron how all cylinders were firing as they should. He then asked Ron to drive the car around for ten or 15 minutes to see if it was running right.
Ron said the car was running perfectly so he went to pay the guy. Remember Ron bought the plugs at the guy’s discount, so the guy told Ron that all his work over 3 or 4 hours were only costing $80 dollars. Ron bless his heart and I love him doing what I would have done had I been there. He said sorry, but no. You took our car in with only one day’s notice, put it first, worked with us to keep us from all the things the dealership wanted to do to us. You need more than $80 dollars. Ron gave him $100 because the guy wouldn’t accept anything more. But he did say that he was willing to work on our van that has the issue of the lights on the A/C part of the dash not working.
A decent man well worth paying. This is the third time we have used his service, and each time we are stunned by how great he is at repairing the problem and the low cost. The dealership wanted to charge us $360 for doing the diagnostics. This man did it for free with a tablet that showed him everything and he could shut the plugs off with it showing us the difference with the bad plug out of the system. No $360 dollar charge. Our friend James who lived with us and still sends me texts calling me dad … oh how I wish … is having car troubles and Ron is sending him this guy’s information. I think the world is not as dark as I thought a week ago. There are still some people willing to do good in this world of darkness. Hugs
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/ABC
