‘She should come and do it here,’ co-host Ana Navarro declared while Whoopi Godberg said ‘you’ve been invited’

The hosts of The View reacted to the White House Correspondents’ Association pulling comedian Amber Ruffin as its headliner at this year’s annual fundraising dinner by asking Ruffin to do her planned act on their show instead.

At the same time, co-host Sunny Hostin accused the WHCA board of capitulating to the Trump administration by canceling Ruffin’s planned performance, saying that once you “give into a bully, that bully will continue to bully you.”

Amid increasing tensions between the WHCA and the White House, which has included the administration’s press shop seizing power away from the association, Ruffin declared during a podcast with The Daily Beast last week that she didn’t plan to pull any punches during her monologue during next month’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

Likening many within the administration to “murderers,” Ruffin said that she had no interest in taking a “both sides” approach to her set, saying she told the board “there’s no way I’m going to be freaking doing that.” She added they wanted “that false equivalency that the media does” and that she wasn’t prepared to deliver that.

“This year’s @whca dinner will be hosted by a 2nd rate comedian who is previewing the event by calling this administration ‘murderers’ who want to ‘feel like human beings, but they shouldn’t get to feel that way, because you’re not,’” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich reacted to Ruffin’s remarks on Friday. “What kind of responsible, sensible journalist would attend something like this? More importantly, what kind of company would sponsor such a hate-filled and violence-inspiring event?”

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Whoopi Goldberg tells Amber Ruffin “you are invited” to perform her canceled White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on The View. (ABC News)

The following day, WHCA President Eugene Daniels sent a letter to the association’s members stating that Ruffin’s performance had been canceled, though he didn’t claim it was due to the White House’s objections to her recent remarks. Instead, he claimed it was out of a desire to tone down the political rhetoric of the event, which Trump skipped during all four years of his first term.

“At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists,” Daniels wrote.

During Monday’s broadcast of The View, resident conservative host Alyssa Farah Griffin — who once worked in the Trump administration — said she supported the cancellation of the anti-Trump comic’s performance after initially thinking the WHCA were “being a bunch of cowards.”

Disagreeing with her colleague, Hostin compared the situation to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer caving to the GOP during the recent spending bill showdown.

“Seems to me when you capitulate and give into a bully, that bully will continue to bully you. It’s like the schoolyard bully. If he takes your lunch one day, he’s going to take your lunch again,” she said, noting that the White House has already taken control of many of the WHCA’s duties.

“When you talk about false equivalency, there is a false equivalency. She’s a comedian. Not a journalist. It’s a time-honored tradition,” Hostin added. “I know Eugene Daniels very well. I think he made the wrong call. I think he capitulated just like Chuck Schumer did.”

“I’m very disappointed because Amber is really funny,” co-host Ana Navarro weighed in. “Also, because Amber Ruffin is a Black woman and queer. I think these are communities that feel that we’re being erased. That, you know, we’re under attack. And so I think, you know, having her there would have had a great significance.”

While host Sara Haines seemed to agree with Griffin that it was best that Ruffin was pulled from the event, adding that Trump’s political career likely took off due to pointed jokes at his expense during the dinner, lead moderator Whoopi Goldberg — a stand-up comedian herself — suggested that the cancellation could have a chilling effect on free expression.

“One of the great things about being an American is you can say anything. And if you can’t take the heat, then you should not have started this fire,” she declared. “This is not — you know who Amber Ruffin is. You know the kind of humor she does and she doesn’t tiptoe lightly. So for y’all to have invited her, and then go we should stop that, seems to be another hack at free speech. And that makes me more uncomfortable than anything.”

While Griffin continued to make the point that Ruffin’s podcast remarks weren’t very “comedic” and appeared to cross the line, Goldberg defended the Late Night with Seth Meyers writer before offering up an opportunity to the former late-night host.

“But when you’re talking to an interviewer, you’re not doing your show. You’re answering a question. So, yeah, she is very funny. [The dinner set] might have been much funnier anyone would have thought,” Goldberg said.

“She should come and do it here,” Navarro chimed in to loud applause from the studio audience.

“Amber, you’ve been invited,” Goldberg concluded.

Ruffin, who previously helmed a show on Peacock and is currently featured on CNN’s weekend program Have I Got News for You, is no stranger to The View. She has served as a guest host on the daytime talk show several times, which included one memorable appearance where she defended Trump’s sense of humor, claiming he is objectively “very hilarious.”