Whoopi Goldberg cuts off audience boos before Ted Cruz’s ‘View’ visit

Whoopi Goldberg shut down her studio audience’s jeers at Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, on Wednesday’s episode of ABC’s “The View,” moments before the senator walked out to promote his new book on Justice Clarence Thomas.

Ms. Goldberg ran through the day’s guest lineup and noted that Republicans were opening their first-ever midterm convention that evening in Dallas, a two-day event headlined by President Trump that also features remarks from Vice President J.D. Vance and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Mr. Cruz, set to address the convention Thursday, was also Wednesday’s guest on the show, and when Ms. Goldberg named him, some in the crowd began jeering.

Ms. Goldberg cut them off immediately, invoking “The View” co-creator Barbara Walters and telling the audience, “We don’t agree with them always … but we are respectful.” She likened the urge to boo to a “burp” that needed to be swallowed back down.

The message landed. When Mr. Cruz took the stage after the commercial break, he was met with applause rather than jeers — though the goodwill didn’t last the full hour. Later in the broadcast, when Mr. Cruz graded Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy an “A,” the audience groaned again. It was the senator’s second rocky outing on the show; his last appearance, in 2022, prompted protesters in the audience to force an early commercial break.

The convention Mr. Cruz was booked to address is contending with turbulence of its own. A Politico survey reported this month found that 45 of more than 70 Republican candidates and officials surveyed said they planned to skip the convention or remained undecided. Ms. Goldberg raised that discord on air, asking her co-hosts whether the convention could actually energize Republican voters. Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin agreed it might not, saying she hasn’t spoken to a Republican operative privately who isn’t calling it “a waste of time and money.”