Hot Topics:

The ladies were joined by Olivia Munn, from the hit HBO show The Newsroom, as their guest co-host for the day!  

Nicolle was super excited to be sitting with Olivia because she is a huge fan of The Newsroom.  In fact, the season finale of The Newsroom is this Sunday(12/14)!  Whoopi needed to clear the air over a couple things before they began their discussion.   She said, “I thought people were much smarter than the newspapers give folks credit for but apparently, no.”  During yesterday’s Hot Topics segment of the show, a sound effect went off while Ashanti was talking and Whoopi pretended to pass gas for comedic effect in order to cover up the interruption.  Apparently, people thought she really farted!  She wanted to make it clear she did not.

CIA Report Reaction:  Former Vice President, Dick Cheney, just weighed in on the Senate Committee report on CIA interrogation techniques used after 9/11 and his assessment was that we did exactly what needed to do.  He also says the report is “full of crap” and that Bush was briefed on the program during the years it was occurring.  Not only was he briefed, he approved it, claims Cheney.  Rosie P still wants to hear the truth but is fearful we will never find it out.  One of Rosie P’s dear friends told her yesterday that he agrees with torture and she was a little shocked.  He believes in doing whatever is necessary to get the bad guys.  She respects her friend’s difference of opinion and she realized she needed to also respect Nicolle’s difference of opinion.  Nicolle thanked her for saying that.  Rosie O believes we will soon know something close to the truth because of the 2,000 photos about to be released connected to the report.  She said we have seen photos of torture in the past.  We have seen Rory Kennedy’s Ghost of Abu Ghraib documentary, we’ve seen the photos from Abu Ghraib, and we’ve seen the film Zero Dark Thirty (which depicts torture techniques used by the CIA).  She said,  “The one man who actually blew the whistle on the torture techniques is in prison but none of the men who orchestrated the torture or who implemented it are in prison.”  Rosie O explained that John Kiriakou, a father of 5, is in prison for 30 months because he refused to participate in waterboarding.  He believed it was un-American and against the Constitution.  Olivia wanted to know now that the report has been released, if he gets to now be released from jail.  Rosie O hopes so and she hopes the American people will take a stand for him, perhaps over the Internet.

Rosie P and Rosie O said two men were paid over 80 million dollars to create the kinds of torture used against suspected terrorists (like putting a feeding tube up a person’s rectum with pureed food in it and call it “nutritional feeding”).  Even though it is physically impossible to rectally feed a human being.  Nicolle said the problem with all of this is that it’s really emotional.  She was working in the White House on 9/11 and was evacuated that day.  She remembered the guard recommending she take off her shoes so she could run faster from the building.  She called her father as she was running up Connecticut Avenue and said, “I think the fourth plane is coming for us.  I love you.”  Nicolle got teary-eyed as she was telling this story and her voice was shaking.  And in the months following 9/11, Nicolle said the debate in the country wasn’t whether or not we’d get hit, it was which city was next.  She was very afraid.  Rosie O said all of us were afraid.  Nicolle said she’s never had more people call her to thank her for defending the men and women of the CIA who were simply doing their jobs.  Rosie O said she’s had many people call her and thank her too for standing up for the other side.  Rosie O said, “I’m sorry that you feel the ends justifies the means but I don’t think Machiavellian techniques are really the foundation of Democracy in America.”  Whoopi has a lot of questions including whether or not we went to war with the right country following 9/11.  She agrees with Rosie P that we may never know the truth, even with photographic evidence.  She knows people can Photoshop anything.  Rosie O thinks we already know the truth and it’s hard for America to face the facts of what we have done.  Whoopi doesn’t think that’s true.  She thinks Americans know we have done some bad stuff and this is one of those “not-so-great things” we’ve done.  Olivia wanted to know if it saved lives and thinks there has to be something that sets us apart from the enemy.  That being said, like in the movie Prisoners, she said if someone had her child she can’t say she wouldn’t do everything possible to get the information from the person she suspected.  Nicolle said, “And on 9/11, they got 3,000 people’s children.”

DVF: Whoopi was wearing shoes by Diane Von Furstenberg, who is going to be a guest later on the show.  Rosie O was wearing a DVF scarf and Nicolle was wearing a DVF dress!  Rosie O said Diane told her backstage she had style!

Golden Globe Nominations: The ladies discussed the Golden Globe nominations that were announced recently.  Birdman led the nominations with seven and the TV series Fargo led the television group with five nominations.  Rosie O was so happy that the Amazon original series Transparent was nominated.  And she was very happy for Louis CK and Lena Dunham who were also nominated.  Both Rosie O and Nicolle were happy when they found out The Theory of Everything was nominated too.  Olivia was so excited for her friend Julianne Moore who received two nominations.  And Nicolle was quite pleased her crush Liev Schreiber  was nominated for his work in Ray Donovan.

Got A Minute: There’s some good news in America’s battle with obesity!  Apparently you can improve your fitness and heath by exercising for only one minute a day!  Rosie O’s heart doctor actually told her it would be better to vigorously jump rope for 5 minutes than to walk slowly for an hour every day.  Olivia isn’t so sure about the veracity of the report.

Days Off for Period: A prominent doctor in Britain just proposed that women should get paid leave from work if they suffer from cramps and fatigue due to menstruation.  Rosie O never had one pain from her period growing up and she always thought all the girls in school were lying, being wusses or trying to get out of PE.  Then she went through menopause at 50 years old and she was literally flat on the bed or in the bath with excruciating cramps!  She finally believed everything she had been hearing all along about menstrual cramps.  Rosie P had debilitating cramps growing up where she literally could not stand and everyone would call her a drama queen.  Whoopi said she used to have terrible cramps too and they had to give her painkillers for the discomfort.  Her mother never believed her until her mother went through menopause.  One day her mother called and apologized to Whoopi for not believing her because of the true discomfort she was going through as she suffered from menopausal symptoms.

Just then the adorable Mario Cantone joined the ladies of The View with Teavana tea for everyone!  In fact, everyone in the studio audience received White Chocolate peppermint tea and a glass teapot from Teavana !   

Got Topics: The viewing audience got to vote on Instagram and Twitter for the topics they would most like the hosts to talk about on the show.  The audience voted for them to discuss the Internet acronyms every parent needs to know.  The only acronym the ladies discussed was M.O.S. which stands for “Mom  Over  Shoulder.”  But Rosie O’s kids always told her MOS stood for Movies On Sunday.  This conversation led to a discussion about being naughty and sneaking out of your house as a teen.  Whoopi said she lived on the 6^th floor in an apartment building in the projects and no one ever snuck out of their house in the middle of the night.  But Olivia and Nicolle both were regular “sneaker-outters.”  Rosie O would never even consider sneaking out as a teen.  She was too concerned with the teachers liking her.  In fact she was Senior Class President, the Prom Queen and the Homecoming Queen!  Plus she said there was no one to really rebel against in her house.

Viral Video: They showed an adorable video of a little boy meeting twin baby girls for the first time and having a hard time processing the double vision.

Saving Mothers: Nicolle works for a wonderful charity called Saving Mothers which works to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity in the developing world.  Nicolle donated 25 birth kits to women in the developing world on behalf of each of the hosts on The View.  This Saturday they will put together birth kits that will be sent to women in the developing world that will save lives with the most low-tech solutions.  Each kit contains a baby blanket, a bottle of Purell, an antibacterial swab, gauze sponges, a bar of soap, plastic gloves, a baby hat, a shower curtain liner and those little plastic clips they use to close off the umbilical cord.  Nicolle said she had an ovarian torsion from IVF treatments and the doctor she’s working with saved her ovaries and her life.  She feels indebted to this doctor and she repays her by helping create birth kits and spreading awareness.  Learn more about Saving Mothers and how you can help HERE.

Guests:

Diane Von Furstenberg: Diane joined the ladies of The View to discuss her memoir The Woman I Wanted to Be.  They discussed her creation of the wrap dress that changed her life!  Diane, who made the cover of Newsweek when she was just 29 years-old, explained when she moved to America from Europe she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do but she knew the kind of woman she wanted to be.  She knew she wanted to pay her own bills and write her own destiny.  She said she lived the American dream but it took her this long to realize what the wrap dress really means for women.  Diane believes the wrap dress symbolizes female power because it is the dress you get the guy in and his mother doesn’t mind.  It is both proper and seductive at the same time.  In her new show, House of DVF, Diane goes on a mission to find a new brand ambassador.  Diane said once she was empowered, it was important to her to empower other women.  She said, “The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself.”  The House of DVF premieres this Sunday night at 10/9(c) on E!

Audience Giveaway: Members of the studio audience went home with a copy of The Woman I Wanted to Be by Diane Von Furstenberg and White Chocolate peppermint tea and a glass teapot from Teavana.

Quoteables:

Nicolle:  [to her father on the phone on 9/11 after the planes hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon] “I think the fourth plane is coming for us.  I love you.”
Rosie P: “I still think torture is bad.  I still disagree with you respectfully, Nicolle.  But what I learned yesterday is if I can respect my friend’s difference of opinion I need to respect my coworker’s difference of opinion.”    
Whoopi: “Style is in the soul.”  
Rosie O: “The one man who actually blew the whistle on the torture techniques is in prison but none of the men who orchestrated the torture or who implemented it are in prison.”
Rosie O: “I’m sorry that you feel the ends justify the means but I don’t think Machiavellian techniques are really the foundation of Democracy in America.”
Olivia Munn: “That being said, like in the movie Prisoners, if someone had my child I have a hard time saying I wouldn’t do everything possible to get the information.”
Diane Von Furstenberg:  “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do but I knew the kind of woman I wanted to be.”
Diane Von Furstenberg: “The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself.”
Diane Von Furstenberg: “You must love yourself first.  Once you have that, any other relationship is a plus and not a must.”

*Barbara Walters returns to The View tomorrow!

Take a little time to enjoy The View.

Written by Kelly Weist
KidRo Productions