The White House threatened to make The View “the next show to be pulled off air” because co-host Joy Behar said Donald Trump is “jealous” of Barack Obama.

A White House spokesperson told Entertainment Weekly Wednesday after the show aired, “Joy Behar is an irrelevant loser suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome” who “should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air.”

The statement to the site also claimed the popular daytime show has “hit the lowest ratings” recently. The show would not comment to EW about the insults to Behar, but it defended its ratings, telling the site, “season to date, The View is ranking No. 1 in households and total viewers among all network daytime talk shows and news programs for the fifth straight season.”

NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 08: Joy Behar attends a discussion of the View’s “Behind the Table” podcast at 92NY on October 08, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Gary Gershoff/Getty Images) Gary Gershoff/Getty Images

Behar made the comments that attracted the White House response during a “Hot Topics” table discussion about Trump’s surprise claim that Obama “was trying to lead a coup” while he was in office. The president floated that conspiracy theory as he tries to divert attention away from unearthed writings and photographs released this week that showed close ties with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Behar said that Trump is “so jealous of Obama, because Obama is everything that he is not: Trim, smart, handsome, happily married, and can sing Al Green’s song ‘Let’s Stay Together’ better than Al Green. And Trump cannot stand it. It’s driving him crazy.”

Trump’s claim prompted a rare statement from the former president, who called the allegations “bizarre,” “ridiculous,” and a “weak attempt at distraction.” The statement added, “Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one.”

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 20: Former U.S. President Barack Obama (R) congratulates U.S. President Donald Trump after he took the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017 in Washington, DC. In today’s inauguration ceremony Donald J. Trump becomes the 45th president of the United States. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

All of the View hosts, including Trump’s former Communications Director Alyssa Farah Griffin, cast doubt on Trump’s “coup” claim, but Behar’s comments likely hit his ego the hardest. Trump’s threat that the View could be “next to be pulled off air” comes after he gloated about the cancellation of Colbert’s Late Show, which many saw as a way for Paramount to appease the president ahead of its FCC approval-required merger with Skydance.

The White House has issued a blistering statement in response to Joy Behar’s latest criticisms of President Donald Trump.

During Wednesday’s episode of The View, the panelists addressed Trump’s unfounded accusations that former president Barack Obama “[tried] to lead a coup” to keep him from returning to the Oval Office.

“First of all, who tried to overthrow the government on January 6. Who was that again? That was not Obama,” said co-host Behar, 82, in reference to the infamous 2021 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.

“The thing about him is he’s so jealous of Obama,” she claimed, “because Obama is everything that he is not: Trim, smart, handsome, happily married, and can sing Al Green’s song ‘Let’s Stay Together’ better than Al Green. And Trump cannot stand it. It’s driving him crazy.”

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Reacting to Behar’s comments, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told The Independent: “Joy Behar is an irrelevant loser suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The View’s Joy Behar criticized President Trump, alleging he is ‘so jealous of Obama’ (ABC/Getty)

The White House statement additionally claimed the ABC talk show “hit an all-time low last year,” and that Behar “should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air.”

A representative for The View later commented on the White House’s remarks about its viewership, telling Entertainment Weekly: “Season to date, The View is ranking No. 1 in households and total viewers among all network daytime talk shows and news programs for the fifth straight season” and “is up in total viewers and women 18-49, versus the comparable weeks last season, to its most-watched in four years.”

They refrained from directly commenting on the White House’s name-calling of Behar.

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The Independent has contacted ABC for comment.

The White House’s threatening statement comes days after Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show was canceled by CBS.

In a sudden and unexpected move, the network axed its long-running late-night franchise, insisting that it was purely a “financial decision” and “not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

However, the cancelation came just days after CBS’s parent company Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to Trump after he complained that a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris last year was manipulatively edited.

It also comes at the same time as Paramount’s pending $8.4 billion merger with Skydance, a production company financed by pro-Trump billionaire Larry Ellison and run by his son David, whom the president has personally lauded.

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Intense speculation surrounding CBS’s motives has mounted, with Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a frequent Colbert guest, demanding that “America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”

Trump himself gloated about Colbert’s firing, posting on Truth Social: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings.”

Colbert has since hit back at the Republican during a recent segment of his talk show, saying: “How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?” Looking into the “Eloquence Cam,” the talk show host did not pull his punches, telling the president: “Go f*** yourself.”

In addition, earlier this month, Trump sued The Wall Street Journal over its publication of an alleged birthday letter he wrote to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The WSJ described the card as a sexually suggestive drawing and containing a reference to “secrets” both men shared. Trump vehemently denied the allegations, and then sued the paper and its owners for $10 billion.

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The White House lashed out at Joy Behar after she said on ABC’s The View that Donald Trump‘s attacks on his predecessor, Barack Obama, were motivated by jealousy, while noting the current president’s role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

On Wednesday, Behar and the other View co-hosts talked about Obama’s response to Trump’s claim that his predecessor was guilty of treason. The Trump administration claims that Obama and his team conspired to alter intelligence assessments to boost the notion Russia was attempting to help Trump get elected in 2016.

Obama’s spokesperson called the allegations “bizarre” and a “weak attempt at distraction.”

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On The View, Behar said, “First of all, who tried to overthrow the government on January 6th? Who was that again?”

Behar added, “The thing about him is he is so jealous of Obama, because Obama is everything that he is not. Trim. Smart. Handsome. Happily married. And can sing Al Green’s song ‘Let’s Stay Together’ better than Al Green.”

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said, “Joy Behar is an irrelevant loser suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. It’s no surprise that The View’s ratings hit an all-time low last year. She should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air.” EW first reported on the White House response.

Trump has celebrated the decision by CBS to cancel The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, hosted by another of his critics. On Tuesday, he predicted that ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel “is NEXT to go in the untalented Late Night Sweepstakes and, shortly thereafter, Fallon will be gone. These are people with absolutely NO TALENT, who were paid Millions of Dollars for, in all cases, destroying what used to be GREAT Television. It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”

At the same time, the White House highlighted Trump’s claims about 2016. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who has claimed that Obama’s team was engaged in “a years-long coup intended to subvert President Trump’s entire presidency,” appeared at the White House press briefing today to talk about the release of new documents. That was a 2017 GOP House Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference, casting doubt on the intelligence that Russian President Vladimir Putin favored Trump to win the election.

But a 2020 bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that Russia did interfere in the election, while detailing contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian influence actors.

Obama’s spokesperson said that “nothing in the document issued last week undercuts the widely accepted conclusion that Russia worked to influence the 2016 presidential election but did not successfully manipulate any votes.”

On The View, other hosts said that Trump’s focus on Obama, and the referral to the Justice Department to investigate, was an attempt to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein story.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was Trump’s director of strategic communications in his first term, said, “I saw the intelligence that we had. I actually was with Mike Pence when he confronted Vladimir Putin in Singapore and said, ‘We know what you tried to do in our elections, Do not do it again.’ It was the consensus of the people in the first term, including the director of national intelligence, that Russia did try to meddle in our elections.”