Sunny Hostin on Wednesday urged her fellow “The View” co-hosts to “speak clearly” about President Donald Trump’s demand for $230 million from the U.S. Department of Justice for expenses he incurred defending himself from federal criminal investigations.

“I think we need to speak clearly to people, and I think we need to call it what it is: This is giving a mob boss,” Hostin said. “Right? That’s what he is. He’s extorting and looting the federal government.”

Trump has filed two complaints against the Justice Department: one for its investigation of his 2016 presidential campaign for alleged collusion with Russia to interfere in that election, and another for searching Mar-a-Lago for classified documents that he allegedly mishandled during his first presidential term.

Trump reportedly said Tuesday that he would donate “any money he got” from the Justice Department to charity.

The president is “extorting and looting the federal government that is already extorting and looting, because, as you mentioned, since 2017, his family has made $3.4 billion,” Hostin said Wednesday, crediting his co-host Joy Behar for mentioning the exorbitant figure earlier.

The president has certainly made a fortune while in office: The $3.4 billion figure comes from an analysis published by The New Yorker in August, which took into account all of Trump’s seemingly endless cryptocurrency ventures, real estate deals, and licensing deals.

Trump himself recently boasted that he had “raised” more than $1.5 billion “in various ways” since the 2024 election alone.

Donald Trump himself has recently boasted of all the billions of dollars he has
Donald Trump himself has recently boasted about all the billions of dollars he has “raised.”

Alex Brandon/News

Hostin noted Wednesday that Trump also received a $400 million luxury jet from oil-rich Qatar autocracy and then gave Qatar a U.S. military defense guarantee in September.

Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, also noted that Trump was caught on a hot microphone last week telling Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto that he would have his son Eric Trump call him at Subianto’s request. Hostin surmised that the exchange was “probably about a trade agreement.”

“This is about a mafia boss extorting the government for his own… gratitude and enrichment,” Hostin fumed.

Not even “View’s” resident right-winger, Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was in the Trump administration during its first term, could find a silver lining.

“This is not about giving to America First and, honestly, I’m frustrated right now,” she said. “I find all this exhausting.”

Griffin added of Trump: “Are you using taxpayer money to enrich yourself, or maybe you’re giving it to charities or the White House? Focus on the people. It’s never been harder to get ahead than it is now, and he just feels completely out of touch.”

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