Sunny Hostin has raised concerns about the legality of President Donald Trump’s decision to seize an oil tanker near Venezuela.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The View is on hiatus and will resume on Monday, January 5, 2026. The episode that aired today was originally broadcast on December 11, 2025, coinciding with the initial publication of this article.)

During the latest episode of The View, the hosts discussed the surprising move by Trump, who has consistently vowed to avoid new military conflicts. Whoopi Goldberg expressed apprehension about potential backlash from nations like China, a major importer of Venezuelan oil. In contrast, Sara Haines argued that the action might be strategically beneficial.

“This was a lawful seizure of an oil tanker, and it’s also intended to deter black market operations from ferrying Venezuelan oil to adversarial countries,” Haines stated.

The vessel was seized under a warrant issued by a U.S. federal judge approximately two weeks prior, based on its history of transporting Iranian oil, which Hostin noted is “often used to fund terrorist activities.” Despite this, Hostin emphasized that questions remain regarding the legality of the seizure.

“The piece that I don’t understand is that the President of the United States is almost acting as if he’s a pirate and the United States is just a group of pirates,” Hostin said.

Noting that some legal analysts have argued that Trump has “no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-U.S. persons outside of the territory,” Hostin said she still questions whether it was truly legal for our country to not only seize the ship, but for Trump to say the United States would also be keeping the oil found aboard.

“I’m sort of in that space. Who are we to be able to bomb boats off of the coast of Venezuela? Who are we to board a ship, even with a US federal judge’s seizure warrant, and then keep the oil?” she asked. “That, to me, feels a lot like corruption, it feels a lot like imperialism, it feels a lot like fascism. And while it might be cloaked in an appearance of legality, I still question that.”

The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.