Tensions between the cohosts of The View have been flaring a bit more than usual lately. On Monday’s (October 14) episode of the live talk show, the first “Hot Topic” of the day was, as is typical, the current state of affairs leading up to the 2024 presidential race. The coverage included the fact that the polls have tightened up between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, that Harris’ appearance on The View stirred up a lot of controversy after she didn’t immediately offer a stark contrast between herself and current President Joe Biden, and that the narrative in the media has arguably been unbalanced when it comes to coverage of the two candidates’ personal and political differences.
The conversation got particularly tense between Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin when the latter explained what she believes Harris needs to do to improve her campaign, while Hostin insists it has been a “flawless” run so far.
Griffin started by saying, “The Harris campaign needs to ratchet up the fear factor… They don’t strike me as having a killer instinct…. I’m scared to death. This is a genuinely close race. I think it’s important we acknowledge it with just a couple of weeks out.” She then suggested that the campaign needs to be sending out surrogates to talk to specific voters in specific demographics.
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Hostin disagreed, praising Harris’ campaign as successfully making “people believe in her” and backing that up with bustling donations. However, Hostin believes Harris has instead been the victim of unfair coverage tactics, explaining, “I think we have the press to blame for a lot of this… [Whoopi Goldberg] you always say you don’t believe in polls? I’m with you now because I’m reading the press. First, it was, ‘Kamala is not doing enough press.’ Then she goes on this huge press tour. She was here with us. I thought she was fantastic. She was the crowd went wild. It was electric. CNN’s [headline], ‘Democrats go anxious.’ Axios, ‘Blue Wall Blues,’ Fox, ‘Dems Are Scared to Death.’ No, Dems are not scared to death. Dems are pumped.
‘What I would like the press to talk a little bit more about is Trump is in hiding. He didn’t do the 60 Minutes interview. He does not want to do another debate. He’s in mental decline. Obama’s speech was captivating in Pittsburgh, yet, instead of talking about that, we’re talking about what he said before the speech to Black men. I think that the media has to do a much better job than what they’re doing.”
Ana Navarro agreed with Hostin about the quality of the campaign, while Sara Haines took issue with Hostin’s assessment, pointing out her frustration with Harris’ answer to Hostin’s own question of how she differentiates herself from Biden. Though Harris eventually said she would appoint a Republican to her cabinet and that she had different lived experiences, she initially said there was “no one thing” that set them apart, and Harris critics have amplified that quote nonstop ever since.”
About that, Griffin said, “Where I think this idea of change really matters is because whether you guys love Joe Biden or not, the public was turning on his policies.”
Goldberg vehemently disagreed with that point, saying, “They weren’t turning on his policies. They were turning on this fake news of him being too old.”
“The reality is the majority of voters didn’t want Joe Biden back,” Griffin insisted with some fervor. “So she needs to signal how she is different.”
“No, this is statistics. These are facts,” Hostin pushed back. “The Biden administration has been one of the most successful administrations in decades.”
“Successful is a relative term,” Griffin argued, before Goldberg called for a break.
When they came back from the commercial break, things seemed to have simmered down a bit, but Hostin held her ground, saying, “We’re not going to see Kamala Harris throw Joe Biden under the bus because they’ve worked in lockstep. She’s extremely loyal. And in my view, they have had one of the best administration, most successful administrations in decades, and the facts bear that out.”
“We all want Donald Trump to lose, and I think that means, over the next few weeks, talking about things that are realities we need to deal with,” Griffin insisted. “ABC polling says 74% of Americans want Kamala Harris to go in a new direction. 65% think that she will be, but they think she will be a continuation of Biden policies.”
After some input from the other cohorts, things started to get spicy between Hostin and Griffin once again when Griffin tried to claim the last word on the matter by saying, “She has to do a high-wire act of talking about what she is going to do that is not being done now. Lay out her proactive vision, which she’s doing today, she’s been doing it for weeks, but make it resonate, make people know what she stands for that’s different than Biden while also truly attacking him. She cannot just rely on surrogates to be out there…”
That’s when Hostin jumped in with her own demand, saying, “Why don’t we start talking about Donald Trump?”
“We do every day on this show!” Griffin said with a laugh.
“We don’t have his medical records,” Hostin added over some crosstalk. “We have hers, and she is the epitome of good health.”
The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC
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