I said on Twitter last week that the left wasn’t done with the Rittenhouse case. A jury concluded Friday that he was not guilty on all counts by reason of self-defense and even before that many legal experts have admitted that he had a strong case under Wisconsin law. But none of that matters if your politics demands that he be guilty.

And so, the hosts of the View spent more than 10 minutes discussing the verdict today and it was mostly a trainwreck. Before Whoopi Goldberg could even finish introducing the topic, Joy Behar interrupted her: “Then why did he go there with a gun?” She then apologized for interrupting. Behar then took over and argued that all protesters were now in danger because of the verdict. “That is my fear now, that he has opened pandora’s box for some crazies out there,” she said.

Kristin Soltis Anderson, a Republican pollster who seems to be the conservative guest for the day, argued that a lot of people didn’t know the details of the case, such as the fact that Rosenbaum “wasn’t there protesting to try to reform the Kenosha police department, he was a disturbed man who was there sort of instigating some violence toward [Rittenhouse].”

Behar agreed that Rosenbaum appeared to be “off his meds.”

But Whoopi immediately minimized all of that by saying that getting a bag thrown at you doesn’t “constitute a reason to be shot dead.” She added, “If you have a big ol’ gun and somebody throws something at you, I don’t know if shooting them is the right way to go.” And, sure, if that’s all that had happened, I’d agree. But it’s not all that happened and as a discussion of the case, this is just an absurd minimization of what happened. There was testimony at trial that Rosenbaum had threatened to kill Rittenhouse if he caught him alone. He had also threatened to cut people’s hearts out and said he wasn’t afraid to go back to jail. There’s video showing him charging at Rittenhouse even after Rittenhouse turned and briefly pointed the gun at him. I’m guessing most of the View audience doesn’t know any of this and Whoopi doesn’t seem inclined to tell them.

Co-host Sara Haines tried to point out that Rosenbaum had made threats and that he was involved in destructive behavior that night. “Legally speaking, in Wisconsin, this was a pretty cut and dried case for self-defense because in the videos…the videos show him running each time and turning around.”

But immediately, Joy Behar claimed that Rittenhouse “came there to initiate violence.” I’ve seen many people on social media make this claim but I didn’t see any evidence for it during the trial. He came to defend a small business which had been partly burned down the previous night. There’s no evidence he went to initiate violence and in fact he didn’t initiate anything that night except offering first aid help to people.

Behar then changed the subject again saying, “Sunny, if he were black would he be free now?” Sunny Hostin replied, “No, he wouldn’t be alive now.”

This is another bit of progressive daydreaming that a) has nothing to do with the facts of the trial and b) isn’t true. How do we know it isn’t true? Because last night a man ran over 50 people during a Christmas parade in Wisconsin, killing at least five of them. Many of the victims left in critical condition in local hospitals are children. And yet, the black driver of the SUV was arrested and is still very much alive. The point is, Sunny Hostin’s stupid claim assuring people that a black man would have been gunned down on the spot is false. Yet she’s clearly pleased with herself when the crowd gives this line a big round of applause.

Things don’t improve during the last four minutes spent on this topic. Whoopi plays a video of Anthony Huber’s father on CNN saying there was no justice for his son and then announces that “two people were murdered.” “To me it’s murder, I’m sorry,” she clarified.

If the View is going to cover these topics it would be great if they could try to occasionally stick to the facts rather than pumping their audience for applause.