During a segment on ABC’s The View Tuesday, Whoopi Goldberg defended Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) over his position that felons, including terrorists, should vote.
“Does anyone think a terrorist should have a right to vote?” Meghan McCain asked The View panel.
“Well, here’s what I’m going to say, if they let this terrorist out, because he served his time, he gets his — if he’s an American citizen…” Whoopi Goldberg said, pausing to ask McCain, “Why is your mouth open like that?”
“Because…Whoopi, he killed people,” McCain said.
“Yes, lots of people do this,” Goldberg replied.
“He is a terrorist…he’s a radicalized terrorist,” McCain said.
“Our constitution says, if you’ve done your time…you have, we hope, been reformed, you’ve been changed. If they let him out, that means they feel his time is up and he gets to become the American citizen,” Goldberg said.
“If you’ve done your time–that’s what prison reform is about–if they let this man out, they are saying, ‘He has been reformed, we have–fixed him…We have rehabilitated him,” Goldberg said later in the panel.
Controversy erupted after Bernie Sanders said at a CNN town hall event Monday that he agrees that felons, even those who committed sexual assault or terrorism, should be able to vote from prison.
“Yes, even for terrible people because once you start chipping away–you say, ‘That guy committed a terrible crime, we’re not going to let him vote,’ or ‘that person did that,’ you’re running down a slippery slope,” Sanders said.
This prompted a variety of responses, including from pop star Cher, who is typically liberal but voiced her disagreement with this policy on social media Tuesday.
“Does Bernie Sanders Really Believe Ppl In Prison Who Are Murderers⁉️ Rapists⁉️ Child Molesters⁉️ BOSTON BOMBERS.…STILL DESERVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE⁉️” she asked.
Later, she doubled down, then deleted her social media posts in the face of backlash.
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