Brett Kavanaugh can sashay away, because there's a new supreme judge in town. On yesterday's episode of The View, fictional television character Judge Jeanine Pirro got the book thrown at her after she accused host Whoopi Goldberg of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome," a made-up illness that HR will not let you use FMLA for, no matter how many times you ask. Trust me.
Pirro is a long-time Westchester County DA and cable news host who curiously uses the term judge even though she only served as one for 17 months in the early nineties, much like I ask people to refer to me as "22-year-old coffee shop employee of the quarter R. Eric Thomas" for similar reasons. She appeared on the talk show to plug her new book called, Who Cares: Buy Something Else—Here's a Link to an Independent Bookstore.
Pirro is one of Trump's most ardent supporters; she says she talks with him frequently and never seems to pass up an opportunity to appear on Fox & Friends to communicate with him directly. During her two-part, 10-minute View appearance, Chief Justice Pirro managed to defend Trump's Helsinki summit (which even Megan McCain characterized as "a disaster."); repeatedly blamed Barack Obama for everything up to and including the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; said the pee-pee tape dossier was fake; and brought up that breaking news topic Benghazi. But the true fireworks began towards the end of the painful, pointless segment when Magistrate Pirro accused EGOT-winner Whoopi Goldberg of having a pretend illness first discovered by the scientists at Comments Section University in Moscow.
As Goldberg started another question, Ombudsman Pirro declared, "You have Trump Derangement Syndrome." "Did you just point at me?" Goldberg asked. "Listen, I don't have Trump Derangement. Let me tell you what I have. I am tired of people starting a conversation with 'Mexicans are liars and rapists...' I'm 62-years-old; there've been a lot of people in office I didn't agree with... I have never seen anyone whip up such hate."
The audience applauded as Goldberg continued and tried to bring the conversation back on track by asking Pirro to defend her frequent claims about a Deep State. Chancellor Pirro seemed unwilling or unable to do so, choosing instead to remix Trump's greatest hits by making random references to immigrants killing people. Whoopi Goldberg, who is not, never has been, and never will be the one to mess with, had had enough. "Say goodbye!" she shouted across the table in the very best segment ending tag that has ever existed. It's like if George Burns was a judge on Drag Race.
After the show, Umpire Pirro complained to TMZ that she had been "mistreated" by the co-hosts of The View. (Note to file: in some of the early reports coming from migrant children separated from their parents by the Trump administration—a practice Pirro vehemently supports—children say they experienced actual mistreatment and were physically abused, denied medical care, given inedible food, and subjected to torture.) Pirro was asked by TMZ if she'd return to The View if invited. She didn't answer because we all know she would. Instead, she walked to a waiting black car, snapped at a companion "I go first!" and climbed inside.
I honestly don't know why problematic, controversial conservatives keep trying to get booked on this show when they know they're just going to crumple under the rhetorical one-two punch of Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar. These are two women who managed to succeed in standup comedy, a profession where a "corner office" is a crowded bar full of drunk people making noises at you. If they could thrive in the misogynistic, aggressive comedy world, what makes a cable talking head or a washed up celeb with a tepid controversial take think they can compare? The View has been on since roughly the Nixon Administration and has always been home to spicy political takes and arguments. The panel skews liberal which is seen as bullying or mistreatment when a person who has voluntarily booked the show in order to shill a product cannot hold their own, despite the fact that holding their own on television while shilling their product is actually their job.
These people aren't just acting in bad faith; they're bad actors. How do they think they're going to be able to defend this nation from whatever this week's enemy is when they can't even defend themselves in a segment on morning television?
I'm just saying, we need better villains. Emperor Jeanine Pirro's entire job is comprised of playing a character on television who delivers stern pronouncement, fiery takes, and, most importantly, coded messages to the President from Margo Martindale on The Americans. That's the whole thing. And yet when she's called out on a different TV show, she immediately pleads the Fifth and complains before being chauffeured away? Cancelled. Case dismissed.
Follow R. Eric Thomas on Twitter.
