Whoopi Goldberg regrets her controversial Holocaust comments on The View : 'It is indeed about race'

Whoopi Goldberg addressed her controversial comments about the Holocaust at the top of Tuesday's episode of The View, before welcoming Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt onto the talk show to discuss the harmful impacts of misinformation.

"Yesterday on our show, I misspoke," Goldberg said at the beginning of the broadcast, referencing her assertion on Monday's show during a debate about Art Spiegelman's comic book Maus being banned from a Tennessee school that the Holocaust "is not about race, but about man's inhumanity" to other people. "I said something that I feel a responsibility for not leaving unexamined, because my words upset so many people, which was never intentional and I understand why now. For that, I'm deeply grateful. The information I got was really helpful and helped me understand some different things."

She then stressed that "it is indeed about race," citing Hitler and the Nazis considering "Jews to be an inferior race" of people. "Words matter, and mine are no exception," she continued. "I regret my comments, and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know and ya'll know, because I've always done that."

ABC Whoopi Goldberg apologizes for her Holocaust comments on 'The View.'

During their interview, Greenblatt further emphasized "there's no question that the Holocaust was about race," citing Nazi ideology regarding "the systematic annihilation of the Jewish people, across continents, across countries, with deliberate and ruthless cruelty" because they viewed Jews as racially inferior.

"The first page of Maus, the book you were talking about yesterday, Whoopi, opens with a quote from Hitler, and literally it says: 'The Jews undoubtedly are a race, but they are not human.' Hitler's ideology, the Third Reich, was predicated on the idea that the Aryans, the Germans, were a 'master race,' and the Jews were a subhuman race," he added. "It was a racialized antisemitism. Now that might not fit exactly or feel different than the way we think about race in 21st century America, where, primarily it's about people of color, but throughout the Jewish people's history, they've been marginalized, they've been persecuted, and they've been slaughtered in large part because many people felt they were not just a different religion, but indeed a different race. And your platform, Whoopi, is so important using it to educate people that antisemitism remains a clear and present danger. It's a real issue and we've got to confront it, and the racism at the core."

Greenblatt went on to suggest that, in the absence of Meghan McCain, who last year vacated her permanent cohost spot on The View, as well as an increase in anti-Jewish displays at protests and rallies around the world, the ABC program should bring on "a Jewish host" who "can bring these issues of antisemitism" and "representation to The View every day."

"This is an ongoing discussion," Goldberg finished the interview. "One we will continue to have."

Following Monday's show, Goldberg tweeted a statement about her comments.

"The Jewish people around the world have always had my support and that will never waiver. I'm sorry for the hurt I have caused," she wrote, singing the note as "Written with my sincerest apologies."

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