Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle has inspired all manner of hot takes, but not all of them are quite as piping hot as self-proclaimed "Queen of Dragons" Meghan McCain's. And perhaps none of the many memes about the interview are quite as rewatchable (or relatable) as the one of Whoopi Goldberg's reaction to McCain's take on The View.
On Tuesday, The View co-hosts held a lively discussion about Oprah's interview with the former senior royals — including Piers Morgan’s insensitive ranting about Markle, after which his own co-host criticized him and he stormed off the set of Good Morning Britain and swiftly resigned. But rather than speak to the tell-all interview or Morgan's blatant sexism, McCain took the conversation in a different, unexpected direction.
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McCain instead decided to extoll the virtues of the American Revolution, speaking about how she loved visiting George Washington's historic home in Mount Vernon — encouraging “all Americans to visit Mount Vernon and see why monarchies are stupid” — and insisted that she refuses to defend the monarchy because she’s “a red-blooded 100% American who celebrates freedom any way I can.” (Ok!) She went on to note that different generations in the U.K. view the monarchy differently.
“The American experiment is the way to go, and if we have two American women — Meghan Markle and Oprah Winfrey — who are single-handedly finishing what George Washington and our revolutionary counterparts did, I’m all for it,” McCain concluded.
After a measured pause that felt much longer than its three seconds, Goldberg attempted to process what she had just heard. “Okay,” she said with a level tone. And that was it. Just one word. “I guess we’ll talk more about this when we come back,” Goldberg added before the show cut to commercial. Goldberg's sentiments clearly resonated with viewers, because a clip of her reaction quickly racked up over a million views and started trending on Twitter.
It’s 2021 and we are all Whoopi. pic.twitter.com/SncHJPxHTW
— Justin Martindale (@justmartindale) March 9, 2021
If it wasn't clear before: Whoopi Goldberg is all of us. How many moments in the last year or more have we heard something so utterly out of left field — often from Meghan McCain's mouth — that all we could hope to do is give a championship-level thoughtful pause, full of self-restraint, and simply acknowledge that something was said? So many. From now on, anytime we are completely taken aback, Goldberg measuredly saying, “Okay,” is going to play in our heads. After all, isn’t brevity the soul of wit?