The View's audience gasps as Lev Parnas rains bombshells on Trump and Pence

The audience for "The View" gasped in disbelief after watching video of indicted Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas dish out devastating allegations against President Donald Trump and his top officials.

The daily talk show opened with a segment on the political feud between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, but then moved on to a pair of interviews Parnas gave to MSNBC and CNN.

The Ukraine-born Parnas told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and CNN's Anderson Cooper about his efforts to pressure his home country's government to announce an investigation of Joe Biden -- and he insisted every move he made was sanctioned by Trump and known by Vice President Mike Pence.

"We would speak every day," Parnas said. "I knew everything that was going on. After Rudy would speak with the president or come from the White House, I was the first person he briefed."

The studio audience reacted in shock at that last statement, and host Whoopi Goldberg joked that everyone involved in the scheme was in big trouble.

"My plan is to send pearls to everybody who's involved so they have something to clutch," she said. "That's a lot of pearls."