‘The View’ co-host Joy Behar says Americans ‘should all be’ embarrassed by U.S.

Joy Behar said Friday that Americans should share her embarrassment about the state of the country, agreeing with comedian Larry David that the White House’s recent UFC event was a national humiliation.

During the Friday episode of ABC’s “The View,” Ms. Behar played a clip of Mr. David calling the June 14 UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn a “travesty” and saying he was “embarrassed to be an American.” According to Variety, Mr. David made the remarks at the Hollywood premiere of his new HBO show, “Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness: An Almost History of America.”

“I have — I’m very good friends with Larry David, and so I’m not going to — I think he’s right in many ways,” Ms. Behar said. “I mean, you listen to Trump. We have — we used to have friends around the world. Now we don’t have them anymore.”

Later in the segment, Ms. Behar doubled down, tying her embarrassment specifically to immigration policy.

“I have to say that I’m embarrassed for this country, the way he’s been treating immigrants,” she said. “He’s been separating kids from their families.”

Ms. Behar went on to invoke her own Italian-American heritage, saying her family immigrated from southern Italy roughly a century ago and that Italian Americans are among the most patriotic people in the country precisely because of what their ancestors found when they arrived.

“And now he treats immigrants the way he treats them,” she added. “And, of course, Larry is embarrassed to be an American. In that way, we should all be.”

Co-host Ana Navarro offered a different frame, noting that in many countries, expressing such criticism of one’s government could be fatal.

“There’s some people that are going to take issue with Larry David saying something like that, but there’s so many countries where if you said something like that about being embarrassed by that country, you would end up dead,” Ms. Navarro said. “Places like Iran, places like Cuba, places like North Korea, places like Nicaragua, where I fled.”

Co-host Sunny Hostin separately called the UFC White House event “tacky” and “trashy,” and condemned a post-fight remark by heavyweight fighter Josh Hokit, who used his post-match interview to make a derogatory claim about former first lady Michelle Obama. UFC President Dana White subsequently criticized the remark, according to CBS News. Ms. Hostin stopped short of Ms. Behar’s broader statement, drawing a distinction between the country and its current leadership.

“I can’t say I’m embarrassed to be American, but I am embarrassed by this administration,” she said. “I am embarrassed by Donald Trump, and I am absolutely embarrassed by what happened on the White House lawn.”

Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin pushed back more directly, saying she is “very, very proud to be an American” and that the country is larger than any single president.

Co-host Sara Haines urged viewers not to hand over their sense of patriotism over the current political moment.

“Trump is here for eight years out of 250 — that’s a blip in time — and I refuse to hand over my patriotism, my pride of this country,” Ms. Haines said. “So I would not decide that I represent Donald Trump as an American out in the world. He happens to be the current president, and that’s what it is.”

The UFC Freedom 250 event coincided with Mr. Trump’s 80th birthday and was billed as part of the nation’s 250th anniversary celebrations. It drew significant controversy, including a federal lawsuit that a judge rejected before the fights took place.