“The View” was forced to pull the plug Tuesday on a live interview from Israel after ABC News chief national correspondent Matt Gutman was told live on air to evacuate a location due to a “security concern.”
In a video posted to Instagram, Gutman, who was reporting near the city of Sderot, tells the hosts that he had been hearing “small arms fire here for the past hour and a half” while showing bullet casings and several destroyed cars.
“The amount of anger in Israel is monumental. People want Hamas destroyed both militarily and politically,” says Gutman, 45. “And I think it would be very difficult for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, not to launch some sort of significant incursion at this point.”
As the reporter is about to continue, his attention is drawn offscreen and directed toward a uniformed man, who tells Gutman that he has to leave.
“The IDF has issued an immediate alert that everybody has to leave. There is some security incident just near us,” the official tells Gutman, referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
“There’s this battle that we’ve been hearing about,” the correspondent says as he and his camera crew begin to depart. “We’re gonna just walk to the car if you guys wanna stay with us.”
At that point, Whoopi Goldberg tells Gutman that he needed to “do what you have to do. Matt. Go do what you gotta do, we got you.”
Refusing to give up the story, Gutman calmly replies, “We’re okay. We’re walking to the car anyway, which is right over there.”
“They’ve had this battle,” continues the intrepid reporter. “And I just want to show you what’s going on here — these armored jeeps are going towards where we’ve been hearing this incessant gunfire. And just on the other side of that bridge, we’ve seen a large number of troops head in that direction.”
Upon reaching his vehicle, Gutman says he will have to cut the connection.
“Okay, given what’s going on, I think we’re gonna hop in the car,” he says. “This is our vehicle right now but, as you can tell, this is obviously a massively dynamic situation here and the battle in Gaza is definitely not over at this point and Israel does not have a firm grip over the south despite having so many hundreds of thousands of reservists here.”
As he wraps up, Goldberg, 67, and the other “View” hosts can be heard pleading with Gutman to be careful and get in the car.
The correspondent later reestablished contact with the talk show, saying that he was well and in a safe location, before the allotted time for the segment ran up, leaving the six hosts speechless.
The Post reached out to Gutman for comment.
Gutman’s dramatic report comes mere days after the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas crossed over from the Gaza Strip into Israel during a surprise attack early Saturday morning.
Heavily armed members of the group proceeded to murder numerous Israeli citizens, including at least 260 attendees of the Supernova music festival, and to take others hostage.
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