On the morning of September 17, 2025, the cohosts of ABC’s daytime talk show The View found themselves at the center of a heated national debate, as they dissected the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing featuring FBI Director Kash Patel. The hearing, which took place earlier that week, had already drawn significant attention for its contentious exchanges and explosive claims regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case, and the panelists wasted no time voicing their unvarnished opinions about Patel’s conduct and credibility.
According to Fox41 Yakima, the show’s panel—Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin—began their live broadcast by reviewing footage from the hearing. Patel had fielded tough questions from senators about the FBI’s handling of the Epstein investigation and other matters, but it was his assertion that there was “no credible information” indicating Epstein trafficked women to anyone but himself that set off alarm bells among the hosts.
Sunny Hostin, a former prosecutor of sex crimes, was the first to weigh in. She didn’t mince words, declaring Patel “not qualified” for the bureau’s top job and describing his behavior during the hearing as “despicable” and “unbecoming of the office.” Hostin’s frustration was palpable as she explained, “How dare Kash Patel, as the FBI director, sit in front of the American people and elected Senators, and behave himself that way—and basically lie!” She reminded viewers of the gravity of Epstein’s crimes, calling him a “convicted pedophile, who ruined the lives of multiple women with his actions.”
Sara Haines echoed Hostin’s sentiments, painting a picture of a bureau in disarray. “He’s in way over his head… He’s the most unqualified person to run the FBI in the history of it,” Haines stated. “He’s just drowning. That’s the problem, and that’s why we’re seeing things mishandled.” Her comments highlighted a broader concern among the panelists about the current state of federal law enforcement leadership.
Alyssa Farah Griffin took direct aim at Patel’s controversial statement on Epstein. “Kash Patel claimed that there is no credible information that Epstein trafficked to anyone but himself. I’m sorry, then, why is Ghislaine Maxwell sitting in prison, convicted right now of sex trafficking?” she asked, her voice tinged with disbelief. Griffin pointed out that Patel and his team actually possess a significant amount of evidence in the Epstein case, including grand jury testimony, victim testimony, and binders of information that had been distributed to right-wing influencers as recently as February 2025. “They actually have a ton of information on this, and I don’t know anyone in the public who is believing ‘This was Epstein and Epstein alone.’ There were absolutely other people involved and the public deserves to know,” she insisted.
The discussion then turned to the recent transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s convicted accomplice, to a minimum security prison in Texas in August 2025. Hostin, drawing on her prosecutorial experience, was skeptical of Patel’s claim that the Bureau of Prisons had acted independently in making the transfer. “There is no way that the Bureau of Prisons, on its own, moved Ghislaine Maxwell to a lesser restrictive security prison,” Hostin asserted. “It does not happen. Someone had to request that transfer. Let me also say this, the timing of that move is strange at best.” She noted that Maxwell’s transfer occurred just a week after she met with the Deputy Attorney General about the Epstein case, suggesting possible cooperation or information sharing. “Now you mean to tell me that that transfer had nothing to do with her cooperation and what she said, the Epstein case? We are not stupid!” Hostin exclaimed.
As the conversation heated up, Joy Behar expressed her broader frustration with what she saw as a pattern of government incompetence. “I feel like we’re trapped in a bad movie. You’ve got these incompetent people running the government, and we’re like a bunch of sitting ducks. You’ve got the puppy killer, you’ve got the SignalGate guy. You’ve got the brain worm,” she said, referencing Kristi Noem, Pete Hegseth, and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., respectively. “I mean, there’s no end to the incompetency that we are experiencing as Americans. I can almost not even talk about individual situations like this because the overall picture and the elephant in the room is that we’re screwed.”
Whoopi Goldberg, ever the optimist, pushed back against Behar’s pessimism. “No. We’re not screwed,” Goldberg insisted, encouraging Behar to “take a deep breath.” When Behar retorted, “Barely,” Goldberg elaborated, “Yeah, but we’re up. Listen, lots of us have been down. We know what down is. It takes a lot to ruin a country. It takes a lot to ruin a country because people wake up and they start to go, ‘You know what? I don’t like what I’m seeing.’” Goldberg went further to highlight the resilience of ordinary Americans: “People are making changes in a situation that is meant for us to give up. It’s put out there, and they are doing things to grind us down. And I see people bending, but I don’t see anybody breaking.”
Goldberg concluded with a nod to the enduring strength of the nation’s founding principles. “I don’t see people breaking, and that is what gets me to keep standing, because they come to us, but we’re standing and we’re still here, and God bless the Constitution. And she’s holding, I don’t know for how long. She has not broken yet.”
Throughout the segment, the hosts’ reactions reflected a wider skepticism in the public sphere regarding official narratives about the Epstein case. As The View’s panelists pointed out, the existence of grand jury and victim testimony, the high-profile conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, and the ongoing efforts by Epstein’s victims to compile lists of other alleged perpetrators all suggest that the case is far from closed. The public’s demand for transparency and accountability remains high, especially as new details and controversies continue to emerge.
Patel’s combative performance before the Senate, which included calling Representative Adam Schiff a “political buffoon,” only added fuel to the fire. His critics, both on Capitol Hill and in the media, argue that his handling of the hearing was not only unbecoming of the office but potentially damaging to the public’s trust in the FBI. As Hostin put it, “How dare Kash Patel, as the FBI director, sit in front of the American people and elected Senators, and behave himself that way—and basically lie!”
Even as the debate rages on, both inside the halls of Congress and on America’s television screens, one thing is clear: the questions surrounding Epstein’s crimes, the government’s response, and the search for justice are far from settled. The challenge for the country—and for its leaders—will be to ensure that the pursuit of truth and accountability does not falter, even in the face of political turmoil and public skepticism.
In the end, as Goldberg reminded viewers, the nation’s resilience is its greatest asset. The Constitution, though tested, remains unbroken—for now. And as Americans continue to demand answers and accountability, the story is far from over.
