The View‘s Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro argued over racism amidst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The majority of the panel were in agreement that Ukraine was doing a great job at coming together in their time of crisis, until Hostin brought up claims of apparent racism at the border, which prompted Navarro to chime in.
Hostin called out Ukrainian police for their mistreatment of Nigerian residents, but Navarro claimed it was a non-issue, and the ensuing tense back and forth began.
What their back and forth was about:
After Whoopi Goldberg began the discussion, Joy Behar began by applauding Ukrainians like president Volodymyr Zelenskyy for their commitment to the country and the rest of the panel agreed with the sentiment. Navarro chimed in right after in total agreement.
“That’s one of the big stories: it’s the level of resistance, the level of defiance, the level of courage shown by the Ukrainians and the people around the world supporting them,” she said, as reported by Decider. “José Andrés, the chef, is at the border right now, feeding people with World Central Kitchen, getting so much support. It’s turning, almost, into a David vs. Goliath thing,”
Hostin agreed initially, but brought up of racism at Ukraine's border.
“One of the reports, though, that’s coming out of the Ukraine that I’ve found particularly upsetting is that there are a lot of African students, Nigerian medical students that are being denied passage out of the country,” she said. Unfortunately, a lot of the Ukrainian border guards are sort of letting women and children, and then men, and then the Nigerian students.”
Navarro acknowledged the reports but said she didn’t know what was true or not. Hostin fired back immediately saying:
“Well, I spoke to a friend of mine who was on the Polish border working with attorneys and she assured me that it is happening,” she said. “There’s plenty of video that it is happening. I think it’s because the Ukraine invites and encourages a lot of Nigerian students and Indian students to come for affordable medical school.”
The show then went into a back and forth until Whoopi Goldberg put a stop to it.
“You’re both right!” Goldberg told both. “You’re both right, but there are boneheads on both sides. There are boneheads everywhere! So yeah, both things are happening. People are able to get out, and a lot of people are not. The bottom line is: what the people are doing is they’re standing up and helping folks trying to get out.”
Though the situation was eased Hostin continued to call out Navarro after the incident, and would not back down in calling out the racism that many African people were experiencing at the Ukrainian border.
