Joy Behar used her seat on ABC's The View to declare that every American ought to be embarrassed by their own country, then doubled down when a co-host gently pushed back. The segment, reported by Breitbart News, started with Behar playing a clip of comedian Larry David calling a recent UFC event at the White House "a travesty" and saying he is "embarrassed to be an American."
Behar didn't just agree. She expanded the indictment. She told viewers the country has lost its friends, mistreats immigrants, and separates children from families. Then she landed on the line that will follow her around for a while: "In that way, we all should be."
That a television host on a major broadcast network would instruct millions of viewers to feel national shame is worth examining, not because celebrity opinions carry policy weight, but because The View functions as a daily megaphone for a particular political worldview, and Behar's comments illustrate where that worldview leads when it runs unchecked by facts or proportion.
Behar opened the segment by referencing Larry David's reaction to the White House UFC event, which David called "a travesty." She then pivoted to broader grievances against President Trump:
"If you listen to Trump, we used to have friends around the world, now we don't have them anymore."
From there, she moved to immigration:
"I'm embarrassed for this country, the way he's been treating immigrants. He's been separating kids from their families."
Behar then invoked her own family history, telling viewers her relatives arrived from southern Italy roughly a century ago. She described Italian-Americans as "some of the most patriotic people in the country" because they fled poverty and embraced America with gratitude.
"And now, he treats immigrants the way he treats them. And of course Larry is embarrassed to be an American. In that way, we should all be."
The irony of citing her family's patriotic gratitude in the same breath as declaring national embarrassment apparently escaped her.
Ana Navarro, no friend of the current administration, she has previously clashed with conservative guests and reportedly called President Trump a "fascist" less than a year ago, offered a partial rebuttal that landed harder than she may have intended.
"There's some people that are going to take issue with Larry David saying something like that, but there's so many countries where if you said something like that about being embarrassed by that country, you would end up dead."
Navarro listed Iran, Cuba, North Korea, and Nicaragua, the country from which she says she fled. The point was difficult to miss. The freedom to sit on national television and declare your embarrassment at your own country is itself a privilege that exists in vanishingly few places on earth. Behar used that privilege to argue the country granting it deserves shame.
Alyssa Farah Griffin offered a different note entirely, telling viewers she is "very, very proud to be an American." Griffin referenced the 250th anniversary celebration and the World Cup, saying that watching visitors from around the world discover America was "giving me absolute life."
Behar's declaration did not arrive in a vacuum. The View has become a reliable generator of progressive commentary dressed as daytime conversation, and its hosts have a long record of statements that would be difficult to distinguish from Democratic Party talking points. The Media Research Center has gone so far as to file an FCC complaint characterizing the show as a Democratic Party operation.
Behar herself has a history of sharp political statements from the panel desk. She and co-host Sunny Hostin previously accused Usha Vance of being "addicted to power", a personal attack aimed at the wife of the vice president. When JD Vance appeared on the show, Behar offered only a backhanded compliment, unable to engage with a sitting official without lacing courtesy with condescension.
The pattern is consistent. Disagreement with the current administration's policies is not presented as disagreement. It is presented as moral certainty, and anyone who does not share it is presumed to be either uninformed or complicit.
Behar's specific allegations deserve scrutiny, not just her tone. She told viewers that the United States "used to have friends around the world" and no longer does. She offered no evidence for this claim, no diplomatic break, no treaty withdrawal, no polling data. It was asserted as self-evident.
She said the president "has been separating kids from their families." This is a claim Behar made on air. Breitbart's report presents it as her statement, not as a confirmed government action with supporting documentation. No specific policy, executive order, or enforcement action was cited by Behar or by the segment.
She described immigrant treatment broadly but named no specific case, no specific person, and no specific policy. The audience was asked to accept her characterization on the strength of her feelings about it.
This is a recurring feature of The View's political segments. Assertions are made with the confidence of established fact, but the evidentiary foundation is almost never laid. Viewers are given conclusions, not arguments.
Behar's own family story undermines her argument more effectively than any rebuttal could. She told viewers that Italian immigrants arrived from poverty in southern Italy a century ago and became "some of the most patriotic people in the country" because they recognized what America offered them.
Those immigrants did not arrive to a country with modern asylum processing, bilingual government services, or taxpayer-funded legal aid. They arrived to a country that expected them to work, assimilate, and build. Many faced discrimination. They stayed anyway, because the opportunity was real and the alternative was worse.
Behar invoked that history to argue for embarrassment. But the history argues for the opposite. Her family came here with nothing and built lives worth celebrating. That is not a story of national shame. It is a story of national success, one that millions of lawful immigrants continue to write every year.
The distinction Behar refuses to draw is the one that matters most: between lawful immigration, which Americans overwhelmingly support, and illegal immigration, which strains communities, undermines the rule of law, and makes the system harder for everyone who follows it.
Behar's comments were not aimed at persuading skeptics. They were aimed at affirming a base that already agrees with her, viewers who have been told for years that the country's institutions are broken, its leaders are dangerous, and its traditions are suspect. The declaration of embarrassment is not an argument. It is a loyalty test.
And that is what makes it worth noting. When a host on a major network tells millions of Americans that they should be embarrassed by their country, she is not making a political point. She is making a cultural one. She is saying that patriotism is conditional, that love of country depends on whether your preferred party holds power.
Even the show's own audience does not always follow where the hosts lead. But the hosts keep leading anyway, further from the mainstream and deeper into a posture that treats half the country as a problem to be solved rather than neighbors to be heard.
Navarro, to her credit, reminded viewers that the freedom to declare embarrassment at your country is itself proof the country works. Behar heard the point and kept talking.
A woman whose family fled poverty for America now sits in a television studio telling the country her family chose that it should hang its head. The only embarrassment here belongs to the person holding the microphone.
