Elisabeth Hasselbeck is speaking out to recall the “wild” fight that she had with Rosie O’Donnell on live TV nearly 20 years ago. The verbal battle took place on the ABC talk show The View back in 2007.
Hasselbeck Sounds Off
Hasselbeck, 48, and O’Donnell, 63, got into it over the latter’s alleged lack of support for the troops during the Iraq War. While appearing on the Behind the Table podcast, Hasselbeck remembered their fight as a moment that “determined something.”
“It’s wild, that split-screen moment. It determined something: it determined who was coming back,” Hasselbeck recalled. “It was a stressful day. It’s not a day that I love. It’s a significant day because I can look back at it now with maturity and think my position would be the same.”
Hasselbeck went on to say that she wouldn’t change anything about their argument, as she still holds the same beliefs as she did at the time. After thinking about this for a moment, however, Hasselbeck admitted, “[I would’ve] maybe tried to be a little bit more physically calm, but I don’t know. I was so passionate about the issue.”
“For me, I think that I’m proud to have spoken on behalf of the military. And I’m proud that this is a program that allowed even that passion to be shared,” she said. “It’s ugly. It’s not a fun thing to look at.”
Hasselbeck Doubles Down
Hasselbeck then remembered that getting through the rest of that show and the rest of the day even was no easy task.
“I probably cried through the rest of the day,” she confessed, adding that she feels “like it created this awful human rift, and I’m not sure it’s ever worth it for that.”
Hasselbeck believes that “we’re created for unity. I don’t think we’re created to have discord, dissension, I think we’re meant to have unity and connection. Even if I can’t see like you see, I like to see where you see it from. I love to get someone’s point of view on something and have love anyway, in that.”
Hasselbeck concluded by saying that the fight worked out in her favor. Indeed, she believes it’s what landed her a job at Fox News.
“It’s why I got hired at Fox, actually,” she stated. “Roger Ailes was like, ‘I saw that, you’re hired.'”
O’Donnell Speaks Out
Back in October of 2025, O’Donnell brought this fight up again when she claimed that former The View producer Bill Geddie had staged it.
“Our producer [was] not an on-the-fly kind of guy,” O’Donnell said while appearing on the Australian radio show Ricki-Lee, Tim Joel. “He wasn’t like, Mr. Let’s-Go-To-a-Split-Screen.’ That was prepared. The whole thing, I think, was a setup.”
A visibly emotional Hasselbeck fired back on her Instagram Stories. There, she begged O’Donnell to “stop the lying.”
“And even maybe if you don’t stop, I still forgive you. And it can just be so much more free, Rosie, if you can just stop. Stop the madness, stop the lying and just be free,” Hasselbeck insisted. “I really hope that you can be released from whatever this is that’s causing you to cause such harm.”
O’Donnell, who has fled the country and moved to Ireland because of her hatred for Donald Trump, responded by claiming that she is “full of freedom and joy.”
“Honey, this wasn’t about you or your character,” O’Donnell said. “It was about the truth of what happened, from my perspective. That’s it.”
“Hate to tell you, I don’t really think about you that much until an interviewer asks me,” she concluded. “It’s not like I’m walking around going, ‘God, do you think Elisabeth will ever forgive me?’ I’m not. So don’t worry about me or my freedom or joy, and just enjoy your life, and I’m gonna do the same.”
Clearly, there is no love lost between these two. We applaud Hasselbeck for sticking to her guns when it comes to this fight, as she was definitely in the right here!