Whoopi Goldberg's Bizarre Claim: Donald Trump Using Iran War to Distract From Nancy Guthrie Case 

Whoopi Goldberg made a bizarre claim that President Donald Trump's military actions in Iran were intended to distract the public from the Jeffrey Epstein files and the case of Nancy Guthrie, the missing 84-year-old mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie.

On the Tuesday, March 10, episode of The View, Whoopi stated that the escalation in the Middle East was "meant to get us so worked up that we are unable to see anything else," specifically questioning why the national conversation had shifted away from the Epstein files and the Guthrie case.

“It’s nutty as h---,” Whoopi said. “And you’re right, every day it’s something new. And it’s, you know, I was thinking about it yesterday, because I thought, ‘Well, OK, why haven’t we been talking about Savannah Guthrie and what’s going on there? Why haven’t we — why have we not been talking about the Epstein files?’ Because that’s still there.”

“This is meant to get us so worked up that we are unable to see anything else,” the Oscar-winning comedian added.

Co-host Sunny Hostin supported the sentiment, describing the situation as having a "very 'wag the dog' feeling,” referring to an idiom and political term most famously associated with the 1997 political satire film Wag the Dog, referring to a situation where a smaller, less important entity controls a larger, more important one — often used to describe a diversionary tactic.

Whoopi warned that the Iran conflict could lead to Americans being "sent in to lose their lives" and criticized the potential for rising oil and gas prices.

“Basically, we are sending people in to lose their lives,” she said. “Because we have seen how fighting goes. We knew we shouldn’t have gone into Afghanistan. We knew that, and they decided to do it anyway.”

“So, now we are in the same position where someone who doesn’t seem to care that human beings are being sent to war and people’s sons and daughters. His kids aren’t going,” Whoopi said, referring to the president and the Trump family.

Nancy has been missing after reportedly being kidnapped from her Tucson, Ariz., home on February 1.

Investigators are probing reports of internet glitches and a damaged utility box near her home that may have disabled security cameras on the night she vanished.

Savannah recently returned to New York and paid an emotional visit to the Today show studios on March 5 to thank her colleagues.

However, she has not yet returned to regular broadcasting.

Social media erupted with comments over Whoopi's theories, with one quipping, “I thought Republicans were the conspiracy theorists.”

The comments follow earlier controversy from June 2025, where Whoopi was criticized by Iranian dissidents for comparing the treatment of Black Americans in the U.S. to life under the oppressive Iranian regime.