Whoopi Goldberg had to play referee on Wednesday's episode of The View, cutting off audible boos from the studio audience the moment Ted Cruz's name got mentioned.

The Texas senator was on the show as a guest, days after Season 30 kicked off following a month-long hiatus. Goldberg was setting up the segment, noting that Cruz would head to a Republican Party convention in Texas that evening (Deadline described it as the Republican Midterm Convention, while OK! Magazine reported it as the Republican National Convention). Before she could finish, the crowd groaned.

"Ah-ah, no, no. You know what? Look…" Goldberg said, turning to face them down.

What followed was part scolding, part history lesson. "This is a place where Barbara Walters made sure that anybody who wanted to come and have a good conversation could come," she told the audience. "So we want people to come, and we want to engage them. We don't agree with them always. We don't jell with them always, but we are respectful and I know you will be too."

She closed it out with a line that's already circulating online: "Sometimes you know stuff… It's like a burp. It comes up and so just swallow it back down."

The interview itself stayed civil, mostly

Once Cruz actually sat down, the temperature dropped, though the disagreements didn't disappear. Asked to grade Donald Trump's economy, Cruz didn't hedge. "I would give him an A," he said. That didn't land well with the panel.

"No. No, come on. Come on, it's us," Joy Behar shot back. "It's just us."

Cruz didn't back down either. "I recognize that the day he came in, you guys didn't like him, and you still don't like him," he replied. "That's okay. That's the beauty of democracy. You can have different views."

The moment lands at a touchy time for the show. The View is currently under FCC scrutiny over whether it's honoring the equal time rule, which requires bona fide news programs to give competing political parties a fair platform. Disney has pushed back, pointing to an exemption the show has held for more than two decades. "The View's exemption remains valid," the network said in a statement, adding that "the marketplace of ideas has never been more robust" given how many platforms exist outside broadcast television.

Season 30 restarted this week with Goldberg back as moderator alongside Behar, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro. September's guest list is stacked, with Jessica Lange, Andrew Garfield, Sarah Paulson, Billie Lourd and Maisie Williams all booked, plus the East of Eden cast, Florence Pugh, Christopher Abbott and Mike Faist among them, with executive producer Zoe Kazan. Former co-host Sherri Shepherd is also due back, this time as a guest rather than at the table.

Whether Cruz's appearance triggers any FCC follow-up remains to be seen. For now, the clip of Goldberg shutting down her own audience is the thing doing the rounds.