ABC’s Sunny Hostin Erases Lincoln’s Legacy In Latest Unhinged History Rewrite

Readers might recall that back in May, ABC’s “The View” showed off their expertise in fake history when co-host Sunny Hostin suggested that Memorial Day was a holiday only commemorated by blacks before whites stole it. This week, she cranked up the crazy when she celebrated Veterans Day by erroneously claiming that American “slaves basically emancipated themselves” without any help from President Abe Lincoln.

Sunny Hostin celebrates Veteran’s Day with racism and some serious revisionist history. She claims Abraham Lincoln didn’t emancipate anyone and the North didn’t free the slaves. She claims the slaves did all “themselves”:

“People often say that Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves. The slaves basically emancipated themselves because they wanted freedom and they fought for their freedom.”

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) November 11, 2026

Their conversation started fair enough by marveling at how black service members throughout American history had, despite often not being treated as equals, made sacrifices for the country. But things took a turn when Hostin decided to spew her black supremacist revisionist history:

Even the Civil War. The Civil War – the enslaved left and joined the Union Army because they wanted to fight for this country and for their freedom. People often say that Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves. The slaves basically emancipated themselves because they wanted freedom and they fought for their freedom.

Over the course of the Civil War, the Union lost 360,000 soldiers fighting the Confederacy. They ultimately won the slaves their freedom and moved the country closer to black Americans achieving equal rights through constitutional amendments. That number is made up of mostly white, but also mixed-race soldiers, many of whom were buried side-by-side in mass graves. Much like the soldiers Hostin was talking about in the Memorial Day conversation.

Those Union soldiers freed the slaves from people such as Hostin’s own family; prolific slave owners who seemingly tried to outrun the abolition of slavery by fleeing across the Atlantic and Caribbean.

However, Hostin did get some pushback. “Yes, but you have to give it to Abe. You have to give it to Abe, because he busted his butt to get this done,” moderator Whoopi Goldberg argued. Lincoln’s work with freeing the slaves is ultimately what got him assassinated.

So, while Hostin didn’t want to give Lincoln credit for taking her family’s slaves away, it was his work with their emancipation that sealed his fate.

It’s worth noting that while Hostin proudly proclaims she still supports reparations, she has made no discernible effort to find the descendants of those her family enslaved nor an effort to pay them reparations. The multimillionaire wants a payday from the United States and the U.K.

Goldberg also pushed back when Hostin tried to misrepresent Lincoln’s offer to newly freed slaves to return them to Africa if they chose that future for themselves:

HOSTIN: He wanted the enslaved to go back to Africa. That’s just a little-known fact of history.

GOLDBERG: Initially. It is a well-known fact of history. No.

Hostin had no issue with writing off the sacrifice of the mostly white Union soldiers because she’s a black supremacist.

In February 2025, she declared that black women are the best demographic in America because they “voted to save” America from a second Trump term. “I’m one of the 92% of black women that voted for Kamala Harris, and so I’m sort of in a resting place right now because I voted to save the country and the country didn’t vote with me,” she whined.

Despite claiming to be a “devout” Catholic, Hostin admitted she only got her positive attitude toward Pope Leo XIV after learning he had black ancestry.

As part of “The View’s” 2025 celebration of Black History Month, Hostin lauded friend and fellow history revisionist Nikole Hannah-Jones: “Today, we honor investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones who continues to redefine our national conversations on race … Today, she’s empowering the next generation of truth seekers…”

For the last couple of years, I’ve been compiling Hostin’s most racist moments each year for NewsBusters (2024 and 2025). She has repeatedly attacked white people, demeaned black conservatives as race traitors, and maintained particular disdain for black conservatives who marry white women.

So this refusal to acknowledge that Lincoln emancipated the slaves is another symptom of the racist cancer allowed to fester on ABC’s “bona fide news program.” Since a key component of a federal broadcast license is operating in the public interest, the FCC should press ABC and Disney on how Hostin’s black supremacy and revisionism achieve that.

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Nicholas C. Fondacaro is the associate editor for the Media Research Center and NewsBusters.