The View: White Supremacists on Train Is 'Defining Image of Modern America'

Nicholas Fondacaro
July 6th, 2026 3:19 PM

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With a very late submission for The View’s most anti-American comments of 2026 (so far) regarding America’s 250th birthday, ABC News co-host Sunny Hostin suggested America was a place she was constantly surrounded and boxed in by white supremacists. She and guest co-host, comedian and actress Michelle Buteau proclaimed that a picture of the white nationalist group Patriot Front riding the D.C. Metro with a black woman (conveniently snapped by a Reuters photographer) was the “defining image of modern America.”

Hostin kicked off her comments about America 250 with a big sip of divisive identity politics. “As a black woman,” Hostin shrieked about “my lived experience in this country was embodied by a photograph that was taken in celebrating the 250th.”

She would later scoff at the lived of experiences of others who said America was the greatest country to live in, and decried that people experienced and lived different lives. According to her, the picture was the epitome of “modern America”:

HOSTIN: You know, I think unfortunately in this country people have different lived experiences. So, while some may have a lived experience like ‘this is the best country in the world and while there's some stuff that goes on, you know, other things are okay.’ That for me was a defining image of modern America for black Americans!

BUTEAU: Yes. Yes.

HOSTIN: Defining!

 

 

Elsewhere in the segment, Hostin would reiterate a story about how when she sees a community with American flags outside their homes, she feels “unsafe” and just assumes they’re all racists:

When I walk into a community and I see American flags all over the community and I suddenly feel unsafe, because 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.

 

 

You are, Sunny. You are the one linking the American flag to white supremacy. Why is it a bad thing that people have different experiences and live different lives? That’s what communists what; for everyone to live the same miserable life (except for themselves, of course).

Building off Hostin’s hatred for America, Buteau wanted to know: “When you say ‘this is the best nation,’ the best nation for who?” “Because, if we are celebrating 250 years, what are we exactly celebrating? Is what I want to know,” she decried.

She praised the image for how it supposedly showed how racists surrounded her wherever she went and whatever room she entered:

And so, I'm really glad that picture was taken because that picture is how we feel walking into many rooms, down the street. That picture is how we feel and nobody will believe us. So, look at that picture and understand how it feels!

 

 

Additionally, The View also took issue with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum condemning the white supremacists this way: “I think that certainly what they stand for is nothing that I could possibly agree with, but one of the foundational principles of the United States, which makes democracy messy, is free speech.”

They just needed to be honest and admit they just hated America. It’s the same reason Hostin once argued it was better to be a woman in Iran than black in America, and that Ghana was a better country.

The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:

ABC’s The View
July 6, 2026
11:21:34 a.m. Eastern

(…)

SUNNY HOSTIN: In terms of, of, of, of, of, of, you know, as a black woman, my lived experience in this country was embodied by a photograph that was taken in celebrating the 250th.

JOY BEHAR: Yeah. There was a Fourth of July march in D.C. By masked white nationalists who were also caught on camera riding the Metro with a very concerned-looking woman. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum -- See that picture? [points at the screen behind them] Look at that.

HOSTIN: Yeah.

BEHAR: It's scary. Doug Burgum was asked if he condemns the group's message on CNN. He’s a Trumper. Watch.

[Cuts to video]

SECY. DOUG BURGUM (Department of the Interior): I think that certainly what they stand for is nothing that I could possibly agree with, but one of the foundational principles of the United States, which makes democracy messy, is free speech. And there are plenty of things that I see that I might personally find offensive, irreprehensible, but in America free speech is allowed.

[Cuts back to live]

[Crosstalk]

BEHAR: So that -- for that they're concerned about the First Amendment!

HOSTIN: Correct. For that.

BEHAR: But getting Jimmy Kimmel off the air that doesn't count! Go ahead.

[Applause]

HOSTIN: Correct. And that's the thing. You know, I think unfortunately in this country people have different lived experiences. So, while some may have a lived experience like ‘this is the best country in the world and while there's some stuff that goes on, you know, other things are okay.’ That for me was a defining image of modern America for black Americans!

MICHELLE BUTEAU: Yes. Yes.

HOSTIN: Defining!

(…)

11:24:07 a.m. Eastern

BUTEAU: When you say ‘this is the best nation,’ the best nation for who?

HOSTIN: Yeah! When you say it's the best nation, the best nation for who?

BUTEAU: When you say ‘this is the best nation,’ the best nation for who? Because, if we are celebrating 250 years, what are we exactly celebrating? Is what I want to know. And so, I'm really glad that picture was taken because that picture is how we feel walking into many rooms, down the street. That picture is how we feel and nobody will believe us. So, look at that picture and understand how it feels!

HOSTIN: Yes. Yes.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: And you never should be made to feel like that. It's wrong that this woman did.

HOSTIN: And I said this on this show many, many years ago. Because this is my tenth year on the show and I said there are times; when I walk into a community and I see American flags all over the community and I suddenly feel unsafe, because 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, but they have weaponized --

FARAH GRIFFIN: Because the flag belongs to all of us.

HOSTIN: It does belong to all of us. But those men were wearing a flag on their hats.

(…)

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