Whoopi Goldberg: McConnell ‘Should Pay Reparation’ for Not Supporting Obama

“The View” host Whoopi Goldberg offered her own take on reparations for slavery Thursday after a contentious House subcommittee hearing on the issue, pointing the finger at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties heard testimony on a bill to study how reparations for slavery might be structured.

“I don’t think we should rule out cutting checks. There are people who deserve checks,” writer Ta-Nehisi Coates said at the hearing.

Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas, the sponsor of the bill, said it was needed to address America’s “original sin” and that “slavery has never received an apology,” according to the Texas Tribune.

“The role of the federal government in supporting the institution of slavery and subsequent discrimination directed against blacks is an injustice that must be formally acknowledged and addressed,” she said.

Prior to the hearing, McConnell had voiced his opposition to reparations, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.

“I don’t think reparations for something that happened 150 years ago for whom none of us currently living are responsible is a good idea,” the Kentucky Republican said.

“We’ve tried to deal with our original sin of slavery by fighting a civil war, by passing landmark civil rights legislation. We elected an African American president.”

“I think we’re always a work in progress in this country, but no one currently alive was responsible for that, and I don’t think we should be trying to figure out how to compensate for it. First of all, it would be pretty hard to figure out who to compensate,” he added.

His comments landed him in hot water with the hosts of “The View.”

Co-host Ana Navarro interjected McConnell into the discussion by saying, “Yesterday, Mitch McConnell got asked this question and he said, ‘you know, electing Barack Obama is reparations. Barack Obama is not even a descendant of slaves. His daddy was an intellectual, an exchange student from Kenya.”

Goldberg then said McConnell should pay for his opposition to Obama. “Can I point something out? You know, Mitch, you said that you would make him a one-term president. And you did everything you could to not help him in the first four years. Maybe you should pay reparation for that,” she said.