A group of activists who got into the studio audience Monday on the live telecast started chanting "Cover climate now," aiming more at ABC News than Sen. Cruz, Whoopi Goldberg told them to shut up, another host said "we do cover it" and then another activist shouted "F--k you Ted Cruz, you climate-denying piece of s--t!" and was promptly escorted out of the studio (thanks to delay, bleeped on the air--the below link includes a TikTok video shot by an audience member), as Whoopi called for a commercial:
The activists claim that ABC only devoted 6 hours to climate coverage last year (with ABC News controlling 7 1/2 hours of programming daily, not counting weekends, the ABC News Now streamer and prime time--and besides, "20/20" is pretty much true crime now). ABC says that they are the only network to have covered last year's UN Climate Summit and point out their Murrow, Emmy and Polk awards for climate coverage.
Climate aside, the whole thing seems performative as hell, considering that Whoopi Goldberg is not the president of ABC News. The only thing that this incident will cause is "The View" getting Yondr pouches that everyone will be required to put their phones in and more scrutiny of New York studio audiences by security than just going through the metal detector at the door. Yeah, if they showed up in Colbert's audience and started chanting, they'd just stop tape, kick them out and edit it out, but to me this is as pointless as throwing food on paintings in museums.