The View hosts slam Jason Aldean's controversial, 'deplorable' new music video: 'You've gone too far'

The ladies of The View aren't grooving to Jason Aldean's controversial new music video, which has been widely criticized for allegedly perpetuating racism.

Whoopi Goldberg led Thursday's show by chastising the country star for including footage of protests in his video for "Try That in a Small Town," which incited backlash when juxtaposed with lyrics like "Got a gun that my granddad gave me / They say one day they're gonna round up / Well, that s--- might fly in the city, good luck / Try that in a small town."

Said Goldberg, "He talks about life in a small town, and it's different, and he chose these images. He's got folks from the Black Lives Matter movement, and he's talking about people taking care of each other, and I find it so interesting that it never occurred to Jason or the writers that that's what these folks were doing: They were taking care of the people in their town because they didn't like what they saw."

She added, "Just like you talk about people taking care of each other in small towns, we do the same thing in big towns. You just have to realize that when you make it about Black Lives Matter, people kind of say, 'Well, are you talking about Black people? What are you talking about here?'"

ABC; Jason Aldean/Youtube Whoopi Goldberg on 'The View'; Jason Aldean in the 'Try That in a Small Town' music video

Conservative cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin said she's willing to give Aldean the benefit of the doubt "that his intent wasn't to stoke division, glorify violence or racism," but she added that the song's lyrics made her think about the February 2020 murder of Ahmaud Arbery, a "Black man in a small town in the South who got shot for doing nothing wrong."

Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin, however, weren't as forgiving; Behar called the song "deplorable" and "annoying," and Hostin stressed that she wouldn't give Aldean any leeway with such sensitive material.

"What was evoked for me was.... those sundown areas," the legal expert said, pointing to her mother in the studio audience. "My mother and father, because they were an interracial couple, were run out of South Carolina by the KKK. My father is still scarred from that experience... so don't tell me that not only was he aware of what he was doing by using that imagery, he embraces that imagery. Unfortunately, this became the No. 1 song on U.S. iTunes. We have a problem in this country about race, and the biggest problem is we refuse to admit that it exists."

Hostin ended the segment with a response from Aldean, citing a tweet he wrote amid the blowback — which included CMT pulling the "Try That in a Small Town" music video from its rotation on Monday.

"In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide [Black Lives Matter] protests," he tweeted Tuesday, calling the claims "meritless" and "dangerous," and saying the track doesn't contain "a single lyric" referencing race, but does include all "real news footage" in its runtime.

"While I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music, this one goes too far," he wrote.

"It does go too far?" Goldberg replied after Hostin read the tweet. "You've gone too far."

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/PT on ABC.

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