President Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, and the hosts of “The View” are fairly skeptical about the move. According to Sunny Hostin, the president is acting more like a pirate than a leader.
The discussion led the Thursday’s Hot Topics, with host Sara Haines begrudgingly conceding that she thinks the seizure might actually have been a good thing. According to the ABC host, it was legal, and people should strive to see past the Trump of it all. But, host and former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin argued that “it’s unclear” whether it was legal, despite a federal judge issuing a seizure warrant for the tanker.
“The piece that I don’t understand is that the President of the United States is almost acting as if he’s a pirate, and the United States, we’re just a group of pirates,” she said. “Because some legal experts will tell you that the U.S. has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-U.S. persons outside of its territory.”
“Who are we, to be able to bomb boats off of the coast of Venezuela? Who are we to board a ship, even with a U.S. federal judge’s seizure warrant, and then keep the oil?” she continued. “That, to me, feels a lot like corruption. It feels a lot like me to imperialism. It feels a lot like me to fascism. And so, while it may be cloaked in an appearance of legality, I still question that.”
At that, host Alyssa Farah Griffin chimed in and noted that the U.S. sanctions terrorist organizations and seizes assets that support them quite often, and has for a long time. That said, she leaned more with Hostin on this one.
“I always favor diplomacy. I don’t consider myself an ‘America First’ Republican, I’m an old-school Romney-McCain Republican, but I actually agree,” Farah Griffin said. “No one wants new wars right now.”
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
