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Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar Storm Off 'The View' After Bill O'Reilly's Ground Zero Mosque Comments

By DNAinfo Staff on October 14, 2010 4:42pm

By Jennifer Glickel

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

MANHATTAN — Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar walked off the set of "The View"  Thursday morning after Fox News host Bill O'Reilly voiced his opinion about the Ground Zero Mosque.

"It's inappropriate because a lot of the 9/11 families who I know say, 'Look, I don't want that,'" O'Reilly said.

Behar retorted with, "This is America," to which O'Reilly snapped back with, "Hold it, hold it — listen to me, because you'll learn."

The studio audience erupted with boos, and Behar called O'Reilly a pinhead while making bunny ears behind his head, but O'Reilly persisted, saying that "70 percent of Americans don't want that mosque down there."

When Behar asked for a poll documenting that statistic, O'Reilly came up with nothing, but gave another reason as to why the mosque should not be built: "Muslims killed us on 9/11."

Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, and Bill O'Reilly on
Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters, and Bill O'Reilly on "The View."
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Whoopi Goldberg then screamed at the Fox News host in a bleeped-out rant, and then she and Behar walked off set as Behar said, "I don't want to sit here. I don't."

The shows other hosts, Barbara Walters, Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and Sherri Shepherd, remained on stage as Walters, the show's creator, tried to quell the situation.

"I want to say something to all of you," she told the audience. "You have just seen what should not happen. We should be able to have discussions without washing our hands and screaming and walking off stage. I love my colleagues, but that should not have happened."

To O'Reilly, Walters said, "Now let me just say to you, in a calmer voice, it was extremists. You cannot take a whole religion and demean them."

Ultimately, O'Reilly offered an apology, saying he did not intend to demean all Muslims, and Goldberg and Behar returned to the set moments later.