Furious MAGA voices have melted down after The View co-host Sunny Hostin claimed she feels “unsafe” when American flags are on display in certain neighborhoods.
Hostin, 57, who was born in New York to a Puerto Rican mother and African American father, sparked the right-wing furore while reacting to a Reuters photo taken by Cheney Orr on July 4 of a Black woman on the Washington Metro, surrounded by members of the white nationalist group Patriot Front, with their faces covered in masks.
Hostin said the photo “embodied” her own “lived experience” as a Black woman living in America.
The Patriot Front’s website says the group wants a “hard reset” and a “return to the traditions and virtues of our forefathers.” The GW center says its goal is to create a “White ethnostate” in America.
“That for me was a defining image of modern America for a Black American,” Hostin said. “Defining. As a Black woman, I’m sitting there in my country and that’s the type of fear I have to experience.”
As the conversation on the topic continued, Hostin returned to a comment she said she initially made “many, many years ago” on The View.
“There are times when I walk into a community and I see American flags all over the community and I suddenly feel unsafe,” Hostin said, without clarifying any location.
She added, “There’s a section of this country that has co-opted the American flag and they equate being an American or an American flag with White supremacy and that should never be the symbol of White supremacy.”
Hostin also called the masked Patriot Front members “cowards.”
Referencing the Ku Klux Klan’s white hoods, Hostin pointed out that Patriot Front members had an American flag on their caps, saying “You might as well have a hood on, because that’s what it looks like, that’s what it feels like.”
Conservative figures were quick to react to Hostin’s comments, without referencing the Patriot Front photo that prompted them.
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville shared a clip of Hostin on The View with the caption “Mental illness.”
Trump-approved author Nick Adams stated on X, “If Sunny Hostin hates seeing the American flag, she can LEAVE!”
Christian influencer Bo Loudon, who is the best friend of President Trump’s youngest son Barron, went all caps on X to state “DEMOCRATS HATE AMERICA,” while MAGA commentator April Silverman, who’s handle is CaliMAGABarbie, told Hostin “why don’t you GTFO + move to Cuba...”
MAGA YouTuber Benny Johnson moaned on X, “I’m so tired of hearing these screeching anti-American women on The View that just sit and bitch, complain, and lie about our beautiful country.”
He added, “If the Stars and Stripes make you feel so unsafe, you can LEAVE. Nobody is keeping you here. Maybe you’d feel safer living in Iran or Cuba?”
MAGA-aligned actor Dean Cain shared Johnson’s post featuring The View co-hosts, writing “Idiots. Insane.”
NewsNation host Katie Pavlich posted that “Maybe a `Hate Has No Home Here’ yard sign would make her feel better.”
The Daily Beast has contacted ABC and the White House for comment.
Hostin shared a clip of her comments on Instagram, where she received over 14,000 likes.
Actress Holly Robinson Peete wrote “thank you,” to the host, while one commenter said the Black woman on the train will “be in the history books,” calling her a “New century Rosa Parks standing her ground.”
Monday’s guest host, actress Michelle Buteau, who was born in New Jersey to a Jamaican mother and Haitian father, also referenced the Reuters photograph.
“I’m really glad that picture was taken, that picture is how we feel walking into many rooms,” Buteau said. “That picture is how we feel and nobody will believe us. So look at that picture and understand how it feels.”
