Whoops.
“The View” host Whoopi Goldberg made a joke about Elon Musk and JD Vance killing Donald Trump on Thursday’s episode of the daytime talkshow, one which left her scrambling to clean up.
Goldberg, 69, made the quip during a conversation about the way Musk, 53, has inserted himself into the debate about the bipartisan spending bill that lawmakers on Capitol Hill are hoping to pass and in turn avoid a government shutdown.
“Who is in charge?” asked Goldberg, a vocal critic of President-elect Trump, 78. “Because I’ve been saying it for a while. I’ve been saying it – I think Elon Musk believes he’s president. I do.”
“I’ve called him vice president. I’ve called him president. Because I don’t know what JD is doing,” she added, referring to the VP-elect, 40. “I don’t remember the last time we even talked about JD.”
“The View” co-host Joy Behar, 82, then chimed in, saying of Vance, “He’s planning the presidency when they get rid of Trump.”
Looking surprised, Goldberg then asked Behar, “You think it’s ‘Musk-Vance’?” alluding to a theoretical presidential ticket with Musk at the top.
“Possible,” Behar replied.
“Mmmmm,” Goldberg mused to a silent studio audience before joking, “Hey, you know who [Trump] – stay away from the stairways.”
“Because, you know, people put their leg out to trip you going down the stairs. Watch out,” she added to laughs and claps.
Potentially worried about the joke being misconstrued — and receiving a call from the Secret Service — Goldberg attempted to walk back the joke after a commercial break.
“I need to clean something up,” she began. “My cat lays in wait for me on my stairs all the time. That’s what I was referring to.”
“I was thinking of that,” she continued. “I wasn’t trying to indicate that they were actually standing there with their legs out hoping he would trip.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin, 56, then stepped in to try and help.
“Nobody wants anything done to the president,” she insisted.
Attempting another explanation, Goldberg went on to say, “It was light-hearted and it’s the holidays, c’mon! My goodness.”
Hostin weighed in again, saying, “You did not mean that anybody should hurt the president.”
“No,” Goldberg responded. “The thing about this show, there’s no way not to step in poo. There’s no way to do it. There’s no way not to do it.”
Referring to her feline once more, she told viewers, “I got a cat who does it to me everyday – and that’s what sparked it.”
Last month, Goldberg shared her belief that Musk will be Trump’s de-facto president, superseding Vance.
“Musk is the real, actual vice president,” she said on “The View.” “He’s making decisions. He’s doing things, so I think, why doesn’t he have to give up X with everything he’s done?”
