Meghan McCain Bemoans Rhetoric Around ‘Mostly Peaceful’ Demonstrations, Whoopi Goldberg Reminds Her That Most Protestors ‘Are Not Violent’

In a segment on The View ostensibly about Rep. Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) comments that protesters in Minneapolis should be “more active” and “more confrontational,” Whoopi Goldberg clapped back at Meghan McCain for warning Democrats against “giving cover” for violence that takes place during protests for racial justice.

Toward the end of a discussion Monday about Waters’ comments encouraging demonstrators to “stay on the street” if Derek Chauvin is acquitted in his trial for the death of George Floyd, McCain brought up political polling showing that rhetoric about “mostly peaceful protesting” didn’t play well with Democrats among suburban women. McCain finished by saying although she believed in “peaceful protesting all day every day, it’s an integral part of an American pastime, I think the second it becomes violent, you lose a lot of people on the message that is really really important right now.”

Goldberg disagreed.

“Right, well 99 percent of the people who protest out there are not violent,” Goldberg said. “We do find that there are people who are burning and looting stuff, people need to be very aware of who they are and where they are at any given time. I personally would prefer that we didn’t have oodles and oodles of videotape of officers getting ready to go out and fight the protestors, because I feel like people want it to happen. I don’t feel like people in power – if they really cared about all of this, they would have come to the aid of the protestors and said let’s work on this before it got as far as it did last summer.”

In September 2020, a study conducted by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project and the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton revealed that 93 percent of the protests in the wake of Floyd’s death were peaceful.

As to Waters, who some Republicans are saying should be punished or expelled for her comments (but not Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi), Goldberg said: “I don’t think people should get fired. I think people should get fired up when they see things that are wrong.”

“You don’t need to burn stuff down. Peaceful protesting works,” Goldberg added, pointing out that during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, people participated in acts of peaceful civil disobedience faced violence. “Don’t forget how all that went down, and how people fought it,” Goldberg said.

Watch above, via ABC.