“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin was lambasted Monday for comparing the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol Building to both the Holocaust and slavery.
“I think we need to find moral clarity, you know, in this country,” Hostin said on the four-year anniversary of the day supporters of President-elect Donald Trump stormed the Capitol to delay the certification of President Biden’s 2020 election victory.
Hostin, 56, lamented that in her view some people have grown less outraged over the incident as time has gone on.
“I just remember after January 6th, you had someone like Mitch McConnell placing the blame on January 6th where it belonged, squarely on Donald Trump’s shoulders,” she said. “And then you started seeing people backtrack and losing their moral center.”
“You have Condoleeza Rice, I believe, on this very show saying, you know, we need to move on from January 6th. I say, no, you don’t move on, because January 6th was an atrocity. It was one of the worst moments in American history,” Hostin declared.
The former federal prosecutor then brazenly compared the riot to the Nazi campaign to exterminate the Jews, as well as the legal institution that treated enslaved people as personal property.
“And when you think about the worst moments in American history, you know, like World War II, things that happened, you know, like the Holocaust, chattel slavery – we need to never forget because the past becomes prologue if you forget and erase,” Hostin argued.
“The View” co-host’s comparison drew strong backlash.
“Already today, we have heard some people in other venues say extraordinarily unhinged and vile things – comparing January 6th to the Holocaust, to slavery, to World War II,” CNN political commentator Scott Jennings said during the network’s broadcast of the certification of Trump’s 2024 election win.
“I think we need to arrange our feelings and control ourselves accordingly here, and not go off the deep end,” Jennings continued. “It was not a good day. Political violence cannot be condoned, but we can also be measured in how we view it in light of the rest of American and world history.”
“I think people ought to really take stock of our feelings and not get out over our skis too much today and minimizing other world events and comparing them to January the 6th,” he added.
StopAntisemitism, a nonprofit antisemitism watchdog, said it was “is sickened to hear The View host Sunny Hostin compare the January 6th insurrection to the Holocaust.”
“Over 6 million Jews were massacred during the Holocaust.For an entertainment host to compare a riot to such a massive stain in history is nauseating at best,” the group tweeted.
Several social media users called on ABC to fire Hostin over the outrageous remark.
“Sunny Hostin needs to be fired immediately. This is too far. Even for The View,” Paul Szypula wrote on X.
“People rejected her grotesque comparison on November 5th 2024,” another X user noted, referring to Trump’s landslide victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, who frequently invoked the riot on the campaign trail.
Several others on social media described Hostin’s comparison as “odious,” “breathtaking” and “deranged.”
Hostin, a frequent critic of Trump and his allies, deleted her X account soon after his electoral win.
