It was a Super Bowl-themed affair on The View for Friday’s (February 7) episode. While Whoopi Goldberg only wore red to honor Heart Awareness Month — a fact she made sure to clarify at the outset — the other cohosts all got into the spirit of the occasion with team-themed gear. Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, and Alyssa Farah Griffin all donned Kansas City Chiefs sweaters, while Sunny Hostin rocked a Philadelphia Eagles vest. Plus, the studio was backdropped with New Orleans decor in honor of the location for this year’s games.
It wasn’t just the outfits and ambiance that made it a football Friday, though. The first “Hot Topics” of the day were also very focused on news surrounding the NFL’s biggest day. They started with a discussion about the league’s decision to remove “End Racism” from the end zones before the Super Bowl and whether it does or doesn’t relate to Donald Trump‘s decision to attend the game — a first for a sitting president — on Sunday. Most of the panelists agreed that the new verbiage “Choose Love” could be more inclusive and chose not to get too wound up about the move.
Then, they moved on to the hubbub surrounding Travis Kelce‘s response to Trump’s attendance of the game. When asked at a press conference how he feels about it, he responded with, “That’s awesome. It’s a great honor. I think, no matter who the president is, I’m excited. Because it’s the biggest game of my life, and having the president there, it’s the best country in the world, so it’d be pretty cool.”
Some fans of Taylor Swift were displeased by that response, though, due to Trump’s pre-election tweet in which he declared, “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
“This Taylor Swift fan is not mad about it,” Alyssa Farah Griffin offered first. “I thought he was totally classy, a diplomatic answer. And it’s his big day to be playing… The presidency is bigger than any one person. He is proud that the president of the United States is there.”
Ana Navarro agreed that it was the right move on Kelce’s part, saying, “Imagine, though, if he had said something against Trump, it would be taken out on his team, and all the hate that the team would receive as we’re heading into the Super Bowl.”
Sara Haines was up next and accidentally sent some of her cohosts into a bit of a tailspin when she talked about a “threepeat” — while she meant the Chiefs possibly winning back-to-back-to-back Super Bowls, for a split second it was interpreted as a third election win for Trump, earning some nervous laughter from her fellow panelists.
After a bit of a sidebar about who Navarro is really rooting for, Haines then returned to her point to say, “This is such a historical moment … anything else [Kelce] said would have made it about someone else and not about them.” She went on to say that since he was in uniform, especially, he was in job mode and had to represent all of the Chiefs players with his statement. “He made a point of saying, ‘I love this country.’ That was not, ‘I’m a big fan. I love this person,’” Haines concluded.
Sunny Hostin, after revisiting the tweet in question, agreed with her cohosts to say, “I’m pretty sure he knows [about the tweet]. He was being a diplomat, and I think he did the right thing by not giving into the madness.”
Goldberg agreed as well, adding, “I like that we’ve not given into the madness. Part of our job is to not feed that because we want to help you not be [frantically shaking]. So the kid did well.”
The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC
