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The hosts of ABC's The View on Tuesday discussed President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents and questioned if he had done enough to address the controversy.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg opened the segment about the recent news of documents from Biden's time as vice president being found at his home and former private office. Goldberg noted how the circumstances with Biden's documents differed from a similar case involving former President Donald Trump, who did not cooperate with investigators and had his home raided by FBI agents.
"Now, should this be enough to satisfy people, or does Biden need to do more?" Goldberg asked the show's panel.
After saying that she's fond of the current president, co-host Joy Behar brought up how Biden once criticized Trump for being "careless" with the hundreds of classified documents that he had in his possession.
"We have tape of Joe Biden saying that Trump did something stupid and shouldn't have done it and it was bad. Well, he [Biden] should have said, 'Look, I know I look hypocritical in that tape. Yeah, I'm sorry about that,'" Behar said.
Behar continued by saying that Biden should tell the public he would work to uncover more information regarding the classified documents. Another option she jokingly suggested was Biden could "just act like a Republican and say it's a witch hunt and let's fire [U.S. Attorney General] Merrick Garland."
"We know he won't do that," co-host Sunny Hostin said.
"He did call Trump careless with these documents. I think it would go a long way for him to also say, 'And I was careless,'" Hostin added. "So, we need to not only review these documents, we need to review the processes."
The View co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served as the White House communications director during the Trump administration, also weighed in on the debate.
"I think President Biden needs to just come out and set expectations that there could be more documents," Griffin said.
She added that "in all likelihood, I think we know that Joe Biden wasn't packing his boxes when he moved out of the vice president's office." In that scenario, Griffin said a "staff error" could have caused the classified documents in Biden's possession to not be labeled properly.
"Whether it's intentional or negligent, the risk is the same," co-host Sara Haines said. "I just think that the casualness in which these documents seem to be able to make it out is problematic, and the system needs to be fixed."
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
About the writer
Jon Jackson is a News Editor at Newsweek based in New York. His focus is on reporting on the Ukraine ... Read more