'The View' co-host whines Smithsonian hearings are about Trump admin not wanting to pay reparations

"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin claimed Wednesday that the Congressional hearings on the Smithsonian institution were about the Trump administration not wanting to award reparations to the descendants of slaves.

Smithsonian National Museum of American History Director Dr. Anthea Hartig faced questions on Capitol Hill on Tuesday after a White House report published earlier this month found that the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History has become a taxpayer-backed institution of "ideological capture" and "extreme political activism."

"The real reason behind this is about financial repair to the descendents of the enslaved Africans," Hostin said, as co-host Whoopi Goldberg pushed her to clarify what she meant. 

"Reparations," Hostin said. "I think this reflects a broad effort by the Trump Administration to reshape the way the nation’s history is told, so this country does not have to pay Black people for the forced labor and the unpaid labor that built this country. I really think that this is what this is about."

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"Even after 250 years, there’s so much repair that needs to be done when it comes to aggrieved groups in this country, but especially African Americans," Hostin said. 

"Let’s face it, when you have truth and reconciliation commissions, and you've have them when it comes to interned Japanese Americans, you've had them when it comes to the Holocaust, you’ve had them when it comes to Native Americans, it has not happened — truth and reconciliation commissions, when it comes to slavery. And that is because they’re trying to bury the truth part. You cannot have true reconciliation, and then you cannot have true financial repair unless you have the truth. And they’re trying to erase that truth," she said.

Hostin noted that the United Nations General Assembly voted to declare the transatlantic slave trade to be "the gravest crime against humanity," in March 2026. The U.S., Argentina and Israel voted against the resolution, and 123 countries voted in favor. Fifty-two countries abstained from the vote.

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The co-host of "The View" quoted Ambassador Dan Negrea, U.S. representative to the UN Economic and Social Council, as saying the U.S. "does not recognize a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred," prior to the vote.

"And so what this is about is money," Hostin said. "This is not about anything else. It’s about this country trying to avoid paying African Americans our due."

Hostin appeared on the PBS documentary show "Finding Your Roots" in 2024, and was stunned at the time to find out her ancestor was a slaveholder. Henry Louis Gates Jr., the host of the show, revealed one of Hostin's ancestors on her maternal side was likely involved in the slave trade in colonial Spain. 

Her third great-grandfather also "owned at least one human being," he said.

Hostin, whose mother is Puerto Rican and father is Black, confessed the revelation left her "in shock."

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"Wow, I’m a little bit in shock. I just always thought of myself as half Puerto Rican. I didn’t think my family was originally from Spain and slaveholders," she said.

Hostin shared that her husband Manny's family is also from Spain, so they have that in common.

"I think it’s actually pretty interesting that my husband and I have shared roots, so I do appreciate that, and I think it’s great for our children to know this information. I guess it’s a fact of life that this is how some people made their living, on the backs of others," she continued.

Hostin also recently faced backlash over her saying she felt unsafe in neighborhoods with American flags.