Whoopi Goldberg says U.S. Vice President Mike Pence should have shown more “respect” to North Koreans at the Pyeongchang 2018 Olympic Winter Games.
“He should have given enough—had enough respect to say, ‘You know what? Maybe they aren’t doing a good thing for themselves, so maybe we can sit down with them at some point,’” Ms. Goldberg said Monday on ABC’s “The View.”
She said the Olympics are “supposed to be the one place where politics doesn’t play a part.”
At Friday’s opening ceremony, Mr. Pence and his wife, Karen, sat in a box with other heads of state, including a delegation from North Korea led by Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jung.
The vice president conspicuously remained sitting when the unified Korean team, comprised of athletes from both the North and South, walked into the arena.
“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin accused Mr. Pence of hypocrisy for making a political statement at a sporting event, pointing to the time he walked out of an Indianapolis Colts game after several football players kneeled during the National Anthem.
“I thought that Mike Pence said that it was inappropriate to make political statements at sporting events,” Ms. Hostin said. “Wasn’t he that guy who walked out of the football game because people were kneeling and not standing?”
Meghan McCain, the lone conservative on the panel, said she would have done the same thing in the vice president’s position.
“I gotta tell you, Whoopi, I think if I were there I wouldn’t have stood, either,” Ms. McCain said. “I have such a problem with what’s going on in North Korea. Again, people are literally being starved into forced labor.”
• Bradford Richardson can be reached at brichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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