Joy Behar Slams Trump For Calling Putin ‘Smart’: ‘His Vocabulary Is Extremely Limited’

‘The View’ host called out the former president’s speech at CPAC, where he called Putin ‘smart’ and American leaders ‘dumb.’

Joy Behar called out former President Donald Trump for complimenting Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that the Russian leader was “smart,” during a Hot Topics discussion on The View on Monday February 28. The comedian was responding to a speech that Trump gave at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Saturday February 26, where he doubled down on comments where he said that Putin was “smart.”

During the CPAC speech, Trump called Russia’s attacks on Ukraine “appalling,” but he also doubled down on the big lie that the election was stolen, before he repeated comments where he spoke about Putin’s intelligence. “It’s an outrage, and an atrocity that should never have been allowed to occur,” he said in the clip. “The problem is not that Putin is smart, which of course, he’s smart, but the real problem is that our leaders are dumb.”

While the co-hosts discussed the speech, Joy quipped that she didn’t think Trump was the best judge of intellect. “It’s very rich that he thinks anybody’s smart. How smart is he? Can he even spell CPAC?” she said. “I don’t think that he’s any kind of a person to talk about who’s smart and who’s not smart. His vocabulary, for one thing, is extremely limited. Have you ever noticed that? He knows about, like, 10 words!”

Earlier in the chat, after the clip had finished, Whoopi Goldberg had also shown that she was surprised Trump would call someone else dumb. “You ever hear the pot calling the kettle black?” she said. Towards the end of the discussion, she also showed that she felt it was dangerous for Trump to go after United States leaders. “To poop on your own country is not a smart thing to do, because when people wake up and they realize what you’re doing, and what you’re saying, what it means, to their country, they’re not going to put up with it. They don’t like it!” she said.

Throughout the discussion, The View hosts also showed that they clearly felt like Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was not something a smart person would do, and they also lambasted Trump’s apparent praises for the Russian leader. “The ruble at this point is worth less than one cent. What kind of genius invades a peaceful neighboring country and then tanks his entire economy of his country? Is that a smart thing?” Sunny Hostin said at one point.