The View Cohost Sara Haines Issues Rare Correction About Her Comments on the Treatment of Women and Girls in Iran

The View cohost Sara Haines took to social media to lay a lengthy correction to controversial comments she made regarding her conflating societal rules for women in Iran with rules in Afghanistan.

via: EW

Haines shared her statement in an Instagram story after a fiery discussion of the conflict between Israel and Iran between the hosts during Hot Topics, the opening segment of the ABC daytime program.

“Yesterday on the show, I spoke about the treatment of girls and women in Iran and misspoke by conflating the theocratic rule of the Ayatollah in Iran with the Taliban's control of Afghanistan,” she wrote. “To clarify: girls and women in Afghanistan are currently banned from attending school, while in Iran, women do have access to education and make up a significant portion of university students.”

On Wednesday's show, the bulk of the debate was between hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Alyssa Farah Griffin.

Griffin condemned Iran for its atrocities against its people, stating, “Let’s just remember too, the Iranians literally throw gay people off of buildings. They don’t adhere to basic human rights.”

Goldberg took issue with Griffin glossing over the United States’ own record of human rights abuses.

“Let’s not do that," she replied. "Because if we start with that, we have been known in this country to tie gay folks to the car. I’m sorry, they used to just keep hanging Black people.”

Haines, who earlier had described Iran as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” weighed in to suggest why the rest of the panel were more focused on the plight of women in Iran: The View hosts are also women.

“And they are not doing well there,” she said. “They are not doing well in Iran. They are not educated, they can’t own property.”

Although the conversation shifted before Haines could finish her remarks, she later returned to the subject, adding, “They can’t go out of their houses.”

After the episode aired, Haines used her Instagram account to correct some of the information she had shared.

“When referencing education, I was speaking specifically about access under authoritarian regimes — not the capabilities or achievements of Iranian women,” she wrote. “I want to be clear: I was not implying that women in Iran are uneducated or making any pejorative generalizations.”

Haines concluded her statement by reiterating the concerns that drove her to make her remarks on the show: "I would not want to be a woman living under the current regimes in either Iran or Afghanistan. Despite their differences, both governments impose serious restrictions on women's rights and freedoms.”

Haines became a permanent host on The View in 2016 but left two years later to cohost GMA3, the third hour of ABC’s Good Morning America. GMA3 stopped production in 2020, after which Haines returned to The View.