After President Donald Trump accused Democrats of being "treasonous" for not clapping at his state of the union address, the ladies of "The View" were horrified.
"Clearly you've never seen a state of the union before," co-host Whoopi Goldberg said. "The opposing party always sits on their hands. I don't know if you really want to be throwing words like 'treason' and 'treasonous' around in this political climate, because many people are pointing at you for similar things."
Co-host Meghan McCain said that it makes her queasy when people throw around words like "treason."
"There! That is the point. Here he is basically in bed with Russia, with Putin, which basically smells like treason to a lot of people," Joy Behar said. "And he's calling people who don't stand up for him treasonous."
She went on to speculate whether or not Trump could be trying to inoculate Americans to the word "treason" for his own purposes.
"Maybe he's trying to, sort of, like, demystify the word 'treason,'" she continued. "Like, if you don't think of it in a serious way, maybe when Mueller accuses me of treason you won't think it's such a big deal."
Sunny Hostin was bothered by the idea because she said it seems Trump was confusing "treason" with "dissent."
"Dissent is the bedrock of our democracy," she said. "Our forefathers were dissenters from Britain. When they came here, and they founded the country, the first thing that they did was they put into our founding documents the right to dissent. The right to protest. So, when you have the president of the United States calling dissenters un-American and treasonous it should send a chill -- it's the most American thing you can do! So, it should concern us when you hear that, you know?"
As a guest host, Star Jones reiterated the argument Hostin made and commented that the fact the president doesn't know that dissenting is "part of our very DNA," was "a bit naive."
McCain argued that there should be some things that everyone can applaud. The war against the violent gang MS-13 was her example. However, Behar pointed out that when Trump talks about MS-13, he's using it to discriminate against all Latinos.
McCain then wondered why everyone couldn't applaud for veterans health care and Trump's determination to better fund veterans health. The concern for many Democrats, in that case, is that Trump's plan is to privatize the Veterans Administration.
Watch their full discussion below:
