Whoopi Goldberg didn’t get ‘The View’ a $6 million federal grant. That claim originated as satire.


Whoopi goldberg

Republicans have touted numerous examples of what they consider frivolous, wasteful spending as the Department of Government Efficiency works to carry out President Donald Trump’s budget cuts. 

Some social media users said a familiar target of Republican ire — Whoopi Goldberg, a cohost of ABC’s “The View” — received taxpayer money, too.

“Doge found a $6 million grant awarded to Whoopi Goldberg to ‘promote diversity on The View,’” read text above an image of Goldberg posted on Facebook March 7. Beneath the image, it said: “This is why we need these audits.” 

A similar March 8 Threads post went a step further, adding: “No, this is why we need arrests.”

The posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

The posts prompted nearly 100 “anger” emoji reactions on Facebook and on Threads people commented things such as “this is beyond sick,” “theft” and “arrest her.” 

But the post’s claims aren’t real. 

A spokesperson for “The View” told PolitiFact that Goldberg received no such grant.

We searched USASpending, the official open data source of federal spending, for grants awarded to Goldberg and found no grants matching this description. 

The claim stems from a blog post on a website called The Dunning-Kruger Times, which described itself as part of “the ‘America’s Last Line of Defense’ network of parody, satire, and tomfoolery.” The site’s about page said, “Everything on this website is fiction.”

The site has a blog post titled: “DOGE uncovers $6 million grant awarded to Whoopi Goldberg to ‘promote diversity on The View.’” The text of the blog entry makes it clear that the article is not real, saying Goldberg “hired a parrot named ‘Ronald Reagan Jr.’” to promote “ideological balance.”

As it did in these posts, America’s Last Line of Defense often places a watermark in the corner of its images that includes the organization’s name along with a “Satire” disclaimer. People who encounter these posts often overlook the small and sometimes nearly illegible disclaimer and share the images to their own timelines as if they recounted real events. 

Other fact-checking organizations including Snopes and Lead Stories also concluded this narrative emerged from the Dunning-Kruger satire site. PolitiFact has previously fact-checked several False claims stemming from the site

We rate this claim False.

Truth-o-meter Ruling

False

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

  • This claim originated on a satire site called The Dunning-Kruger Times. 

  • A spokesperson for "The View" said there was no truth to the grant claim. 

  • We searched USASpending, the official open data source of federal spending, for grants awarded to Whoopi Goldberg and found no grants matching this description.

Statement

The Department of Government Efficiency “found a $6 million grant awarded to Whoopi Goldberg to ‘promote diversity on The View.’”

Context

a post on Facebook

Speaker/Target

Statement Date

March 7, 2025
Our Sources

Threads post, March 8, 2025

Facebook post, March 13, 2025

Email exchange with spokesperson for The View, March 14, 2025

USASpending search, March 14, 2025

The Dunning-Kruger Times, DOGE Uncovers $6 Million Grant Awarded to Whoopi Goldberg to "Promote Diversity on The View," accessed March 14, 2025

Snopes, No, DOGE didn't find $6M grant awarded to Whoopi Goldberg to 'promote diversity' on 'The View', March 10, 2025

Lead Stories, Fact Check: DOGE Did NOT Uncover $6 Million Grant Awarded To Whoopi Goldberg To "Promote Diversity On The View," March 13, 2025

PolitiFact, Story about Publix dropping Ben & Jerry’s products originated on satire site, June 9, 2023

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PolitiFact, Was Garth Brooks ghosted by Illinois fans over his pro-LGBTQ+ stance? No. That story is satirical, June 30, 2023

PolitiFact, Claim that Kamala Harris was fired from McDonald’s for stealing is satire, Sept. 4, 2024

PolitiFact, Social posts about Kyle Rittenhouse registering a lien against Whoopi Goldberg started as satire, Nov. 22, 2024

PolitiFact, Old fake news story about NFL refs ejecting protesting players recirculates, May 28, 2024

PolitiFact, Claim that Netflix stock fell after it donated to Harris campaign is satire, July 30, 2024

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