There’s been a lot of talk about Elon Musk’s perceived influence on President-elect Donald Trump, so it’s no surprise that “The View” decided to wade into the conversation on Thursday’s episode. Unfortunately, as things got a little silly, a quick joke about the two men and Vice President-elect JD Vance had co-host Whoopi Goldberg carefully clarifying her words.
The discussion was spawned by the Tesla billionaire’s series of tweets criticizing a House bipartisan spending bill, which was meant to avoid a government shutdown. His reaction led to Trump jumping into the situation and the bill didn’t make it.
All this chaos had Goldberg wondering what’s really going on.
“Who is in charge?” she asked “Because I’ve been saying it for a while. I’ve been saying it – I think Elon Musk believes he’s president. I do.”
She went on to quip about the SpaceX boss’ possible role in relation to Vance.
“I’ve called him vice president. I’ve called him president. Because I don’t know what JD is doing,” she said. “I don’t remember the last time we even talked about JD.”
Co-host Joy Behar jumped in to explain that she thinks Vance is “planning the presidency when they get rid of Trump.” This led the shocked “Sister Act” star to ask, “You think it’s ‘Musk-Vance’?”
The EGOT winner then joked that the President-elect should “stay away from the stairways.”
“Because, you know, people put their leg out to trip you going down the stairs. Watch out,” Goldberg said as the audience laughed.
However, during the commercial break the comedy legend must have remembered that the subjects of her remarks don’t like being the butt of the joke, and she didn’t want to deal with a possible visit from the Secret Service, so she clarified her comments.
“I need to clean something up,” she said. “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. I wasn’t trying to indicate that they were actually standing there with their legs out hoping he would trip.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin, added, “Nobody wants anything done to the president.”
The actress/comedian let everyone know, “It was light-hearted and it’s the holidays, c’mon! My goodness.”