Whoopi Goldberg and her The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin engaged in a back-and-forth on the show’s Wednesday episode after the Sister Act star claimed that the way Black people are treated in the United States is as bad as life in Iran.
Iran, which is an Islamic state, is currently embroiled in a deadly war with Israel as the two countries have been launching a series of attacks against each other.
“We have been known in this country to tie gay folks to the car,” Goldberg, 69, told Griffin, Page Six reported. “Listen, I’m sorry. They used to just keep hanging black people.”
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“It is the same,” she also said in reference to the situation in Iran, a country critics have accused of having a bad human rights record. But Griffin, 36, begged to differ, stating that the United States in 2025 is different from the current Iran.
“It is not even the same. I couldn’t step foot wearing this outfit in Tehran right now,” Griffin said. Women in Iran are mandated to cover their skin and wear hijabs to cover their hair when they are in public.
Griffin, who is a political strategist, also said defying those rules could lead to deadly repercussions for offenders.
“That’s why I’m saying that it is the same,” Goldberg stressed. “Murdering someone for their difference is not good, whoever does it. It’s not good.”
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Griffin, however, reiterated that it was wrong to compare the way of life in the United States to that of Iran. But Goldberg responded saying, “Not if you’re black.”
Griffin once again begged to differ. “No one at this table should go to Tehran,” she told her co-hosts, Page Six reported. Goldberg then highlighted the daily plights of Black people in the United States, though she described her home nation as “the greatest country in the world.”
“Every day we are worried,” the EGOT winner said. “Do we have to be worried about our kids? Are our kids gonna get shot because they’re running through somebody’s neighborhood?”
Griffin told Goldberg that though she got her point, she felt it was “important we remember there are places much darker than this country and people who deserve rights.”
Goldberg chimed in, stating that people may not share the same sentiments as hers. She also highlighted that it took the United States until 1965 to enfranchise Black people.
“They don’t have free and fair elections in Iran,” Griffin responded. “It’s not even the same universe.”
“Just try to understand, from their point of view, this country does not do them well,” the show’s co-host, Joy Behar, told Griffin. The 36-year-old said that though she “completely” got where Goldberg was coming from, she was still of the view that life in Iran is “significantly worse” when compared to the standard of living in the United States.
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