Whoopi Goldberg defends flagrant foul on Caitlin Clark: ‘This is basketball!’

“The View” co-hosts, including Whoopi Goldberg, defended a WNBA player’s viral flagrant foul against star rookie Caitlin Clark on Monday, arguing it happens all the time in basketball.

“Let’s be realistic, OK? This is basketball, OK?” co-host Whoopi Goldberg said. “This happens in basketball all the time. Angel Reese got clotheslined the other day.”

Clark, the first overall draft pick by the Indiana Fever, received an off-the-ball hip check foul on Saturday from the Chicago Sky’s Chennedy Carter. The moment went viral and led to discussions about whether Clark was being targeted as the star guard brings unprecedented attention to the WNBA. 

Goldberg said people were reading too much into the moment, saying, “They’re there to win. And just because they’re women, get over yourselves, they’re athletes.”

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Co-host Sunny Hostin said it was roughly the fifth time “The View” – which centers women’s issues and perspectives – has discussed the WNBA in recent memory, before telling viewers that basketball is a “contact sport.”

Carter hip-checked Clark to the ground during the Sky-Fever game on Saturday after the Sky had scored. The Sky’s Angel Reese, who at LSU was a college rival of Iowa’s Clark, jumped up and cheered the play from the bench. Carter received a common foul call at the time, but the league upgraded it to a more severe flagrant-1 violation after reviewing it later.

“It’s not dainty play. When you’re sitting there [and] you’re watching, sometimes when that happens you think, ‘Ooh, wow. I couldn’t take it,'” Hostin said, noting that the foul on Clark was “clearly a flagrant foul.”

Hostin also brought up Connecticut Sun player Alyssa Thomas’ flagrant foul against Reese in late May. Hostin praised Reese’s response to the foul at her postgame press conference, during which she said, “thank you, AT, for sending a message to me because I got back up, and I kept going and kept pushing.”

“It’s going to make them better. It’s going to make Caitlin better. It’s going to make Angel better. It’s going to make the league better,” Hostin said. 

Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter (7) is whistled for a foul for knocking Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) to the ground on June 1, 2024, at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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Clark is arguably the highest-profile WNBA player of all time after her standout career at Iowa made her a sensation. Known for her outstanding shooting and passing, she finished her career as the all-time leading scorer in Division I basketball history and led Iowa to consecutive NCAA championship game appearances in 2023 and 2024.  Her games drew record ratings numbers for women’s basketball.

She made millions in NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) deals while in college and reportedly signed an eye-popping $28 million endorsement deal with Nike earlier this year.

Hostin recently suggested that Clark was getting a lot of attention because of “White privilege” and “pretty privilege.”

“Now, Caitlin Clark is bringing this money, these sponsorships, we hope, into the league and other players will benefit from it. But I do think that she is more relatable to more people because she’s White, because she’s attractive, and unfortunately, there still is that stigma against the LGBTQ+ community. Seventy percent of the WNBA is Black. A third of the players are in the LGBTQ+ community, and we have to do something about that stigma in this country,” she said last month. 

During the segment on Monday, co-host Ana Navarro echoed comments made by Becky Hammon, the head coach of the Las Vegas Aces. 

“It’s construed as some of our minority Black and Brown women are hating on her because she’s White, and that is not the case. Let’s take Caitlin out of the picture,” Hammon said. “It’s not about Caitlin. Give her her flowers. She’s done stuff that no man or woman, Black or White, has ever done in college basketball. Give that woman her flowers.” 

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“Let’s not make this about race, it’s about basketball,” Navarro said after quoting Hammon.