A co-host of “the View,” Sunny Hostin, couldn’t look more unhappy while reading multiple on-air “legal notes” regarding misconduct accusations against Matt Gaetz, Pete Hegseth, and George Santos. The legal notes were designed to shield the “View”, a production of ABC News, from legal liability for comments Ms. Hostin and her co-hosts made about the three men.  

“I have a legal note,” Ms. Hostin said, with her co-stars audibly laughing in the background. “Matt Gaetz long denied all allegations and has not been charged with any crime,” she said during Friday’s show, unable to mask her grimace. She then read another disclaimer about President Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Mr. Hegseth, who paid a woman an undisclosed sum after she accused him of sexual assault in 2017: “Pete Hegseth’s lawyer said he paid the woman in 2023 to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit,” Ms. Hostin added. 

Earlier in the broadcast, another co-host, Joy Behar, was required to read a legal note about Mr. Santos — who was expelled from Congress after being charged with stealing people’s identities and making charges on his own donors’ credit cards without their authorization — after they discussed his lobbying efforts for Mr. Gaetz. “We have to clarify that Santos eventually reached a plea deal after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft,” Ms. Behar said.

After the third legal note was read, another co-host, Ana Navarro, quipped that “This show’s gonna be just legal notes and things we’re selling.” Her comment prompted Ms. Behar to interject and suggest in jest that “the View” be “the Legal Note” over how often the hosts are required to recite them. 

The compulsory reading of  the  “legal notes” comes as ABC’s owner, The Walt Disney Company, may be particularly sensitive to conservatives taking legal action against ABC News’s liberal television personalities for defamation. ABC News, which oversees “The View”,  is currently being sued by Trump over on-air comments made by “Good Morning America” co-host George Stephanopoulos who pestered Rep. Nancy Mace by asking her repeatedly to comment on how Trump had been “found liable for rape.” Mr. Trump was in fact only found liable for “sexual assault” in the case of the writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her in a dressing room on the lingerie floor of the venerable Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman some time in the 1990s. Trump has strenuously denied the accusations.. 

ABC’s lawyers have failed to get his lawsuit thrown out and it’s entering the deposition phase, when ABC will be forced to disgorge internal communications. 

In 2017, Disney paid $177 million to a South Dakota meat processor defamed by ABC News whose star host, Diane Sawyer,  referred to its product, finely textured beef, as “pink slime”. At the time, it was the largest ever settlement of its kind. 

Back at “The View,” the disclaimers became a topic of discussion in October when co-host Whoopi Goldberg expressed her frustration Ms. Hostin was required to recite a legal note regarding accusations leveled against President Trump.

“I find that so interesting. I mean this is what we have to do, these legal notes each time, to say what has been proven to be a fact,” Ms. Goldberg said before addressing the show’s executive producer, Brian Teta, offscreen. “We have to deny it on their behalf, is that right?”

Mr. Teta responded by explaining that the network is required to “state the denials that they’ve stated” so that the viewers can hear both sides. Ms. Goldberg retorted: “one day you’ll tell me why.”