Whoopi Goldberg Has a One-Way Ticket to the Moon for Donald Trump

Only on daytime TV do you get from NASA to personal insults in under five minutes. On Thursday's April 30 episode of ABC's 'The View,' a casual chat about the Artemis II mission turned into Whoopi Goldberg suggesting a one-way ticket to the moon for Donald Trump, and it escalated from there.

What kicked this off

Trump, fresh off a recent meet-and-greet with the Artemis II astronauts, said he would have "no trouble making it" to space physically and asked if "a president is allowed to go up on one of these missions." That was more than enough material for the panel.

The View panel's rapid-fire responses

• Whoopi Goldberg (70) deadpanned that Trump could absolutely go to space "if they left you up there," adding he could "drive around on the moon on the rover." Then she pulled the brakes: beyond the joke, she argued he wouldn’t make the cut because NASA looks for a master’s degree in STEM fields — "You don’t have any master’s degrees" — plus other requirements.
• Goldberg also said he didn’t meet the age requirements and noted NASA leans hard on leadership, teamwork, and communications skills. Translation: being famous isn’t the same thing as being flight-ready.
• Joy Behar (83) kept the bit going, suggesting he bring JD Vance and Mike Johnson along — and skip the moon entirely. "I hear that Jupiter is lovely this time of year... the moon is not that far. Jupiter is further away!"
• Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked in Trump’s first administration, hit pause on the snark to gush about Artemis II itself, saying the mission made her feel better about the world for a minute.
• Sunny Hostin (57) circled back to the qualifications point and, not-so-subtly, said she doesn’t think Trump would clear the bar for space travel. She referenced an old claim about Trump’s time at UPenn, citing professor William T. Kelly reportedly calling him the "dumbest student" he’d ever had.

The response that raised eyebrows

Then came the blowback. A White House spokesman, Davis Ingle, gave a statement to Us Weekly blasting Goldberg and Behar with the kind of language you don’t usually see in official releases. It was not subtle.

"Whoopi Goldberg and 'Joyless' Behar are a pair of useful idiots that have no talent and a very poorly rated TV show. I lose brain cells every single time I have the displeasure of hearing them speak."

Spicy. And unusual: daytime hosts get dragged online all the time, but it’s not every day someone speaking for the White House unloads on them like that.

The longer-running feud

This isn’t a one-off. Trump and 'The View' have been at odds for years, and Goldberg and Behar have routinely gone after him since his first term. The friction has basically become part of the show’s DNA at this point.

Where this leaves the space talk

Artemis II is still doing its job — getting people hyped about spaceflight — even if Thursday’s segment swerved into roast territory. Bottom line: the moon jokes were jokes, but the NASA bar is no joke. Degrees, experience, teamwork — it’s a long checklist, and celebrity alone doesn’t punch your ticket.

'The View' airs weekdays on ABC.