ABC’s Jon Karl Shocks The View by Comparing Wild Post-Election Call With Trump to Brush With Fictional Drug Lord Walter White

Hosts on The View were left reeling when guest Jonthan Karl retold how President Donald Trump taunted him in a wild post-election phone call, comparing the conversation to a brush with Breaking Bad’s fictional meth kingpin Walter White.

Karl, ABC’s chief White House correspondent, appeared on The View on Tuesday as part of a promotional tour for his new book, Retribution, a recounting of the 2024 presidential campaign.

The book dives into both the Republican and Democratic campaigns, with Karl using his insider sources to share never before heard details about the behind-the-scenes fights that defined the past election.

Asked by co-host Sara Haines what conversation from that time stood out the most, Karl replied it was, unequivocally, his call to Trump after he’d won.

“The election happens, he wins and wins big. You know election night, you know what it’s like, we are on all night on ABC. We’re tracking all the returns, we finally get off at like 4am in the morning, but then you have to go and you have to be there for Good morning America and it’s like – so there’s no sleep,” he began.

He continued: “So I get back into my hotel finally after Good Morning at 7am in the morning and I do something silly, I call Donald Trump. There is no way he’s going to pick up but I figured I would just leave him a message: ‘After all this, congratulations, you won. You know, you won.’

To Karl’s shock, Trump answered: “He picks up. And his voice – I mean, he hadn’t slept at all. I hadn’t slept. But: ‘Hello, Jonathan.’ And I said, ‘Mr. President-elect, I just want to say congratulations.’ And he [replies]: ‘On what, Jonathan? On what?’ I was like, say it!”

As the co-hosts laughed awkwardly, Karl related: “Have you ever seen Breaking Bad? There’s a great scene –”

“Are you kidding?” Haines asked.

“No, there is a famous scene in Breaking Bad where [White] says: ‘Say my name!’” Karl said. In the scene protagonist Walter White asserts his dominance over a rival by forcing him to acknowledge his criminal alias with chilling pride.

Knowing Trump wanted him to parrot his campaign trail slogan, he continued: “So, I said: ‘On the greatest comeback victory in the history of American politics’.”

The hosts were left stunned.

“But he wanted to hear me say the words!” Karl said.

“Wow,” co-host Sunny Hostin said.

“So needy,” co-host Joy Behar said, breaking the tension. “You know, you have a very strange relationship with him, from this personal conversation you had with him right now it’s weird. When you’re interviewing him he’s very nasty to you, in fact.”

Karl acknowledged that but added he’d known Trump for 30 years and said that in all the presidencies and elections he’d covered, Trump was the only one he’d be able to call directly.

“It was easier to get Donald Trump on the phone than to get the deputy press secretary for the Kamala Harris campaign on the phone,” he said.

Watch above via ABC.