The relative peace and camaraderie that The View has experienced since Meghan McCain left in 2021 seemed to go out the window on Wednesday during a heated and uncomfortable exchange between co-hosts Alyssa Farah Griffin and Sunny Hostin.
The back-and-forth, which centered on former Vice President Mike Pence’s presidential campaign, grew so intense that host Whoopi Goldberg had to intervene and throw the program to a commercial break before it got worse.
At the top of Wednesday’s broadcast, the panel discussed the recent campaign announcements of Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who are both looking to stop Donald Trump from winning the GOP presidential nomination.
Griffin, who replaced McCain as the show’s resident conservative host last year, first said that she “needs to hear more from” Pence on his policy positions before she can have a full opinion of his campaign. She then went on to describe Christie as a “one-man wrecking ball” whose sole mission was to take out Trump during the primary.
Hostin, meanwhile, dismissed Christie as “spineless” and “soulless” before taking aim at Griffin for suggesting that she needed to wait and see before giving an opinion on Pence’s campaign. Griffin, before taking a position with the Trump White House in 2020, worked as Pence’s press secretary for two years.
“What scares me, Alyssa, is that you are incapable of defending a man that you worked for, that you’ve known of,” Hostin huffed, prompting her conservative college to interject.
“Oh, no no. Why don’t you ask me a question?” Griffin shot back while co-host Joy Behar noted that, “I did ask you a question.” Hostin, for her part, continued to make her point.
“You said that you needed to hear more from him,” she declared. “I don’t need to hear more from Pence for several reasons.”
Griffin, growing increasingly agitated, responded that Hostin had “just accused” her of something before asking her colleague to let her “actually answer” the question, a request that went unheeded.
“Nope. I’m going to finish what I’m going to say,” Hostin retorted before pulling out a note card with anti-Pence talking points.
At one point, while Hostin ran through Pence’s record as Indiana governor, Griffin pointed out that Hostin recently defended Cornel West’s third-party presidential bid, adding that West is “destroying our country.”
Behar then chimed in, telling Griffin to “not make it personal,” leading Griffin to claim that “Sunny likes to make it personal with me” while once again wondering if Hostin was going to let her respond. Hostin, though, continued to ignore Griffin while railing against Pence.
“I mean, this is absurd,” Griffin fumed. “This is not what this show is about. This is Barbara Walters’ legacy, let a woman speak! Everybody’s going to know Sunny Hostin’s view.”
With the segment completely breaking down, Goldberg jumped in before it got even uglier.
“Why do I feel like I need to go to break right now? Because I can’t hear anybody saying anything,” she exclaimed. “Maybe we just need to figure out how we do this again. Let’s have this break and figure out how we’re going to make this work.”
As the program went to a commercial break, an upset Griffin shouted out: “What a disgrace!”
When the show returned a few minutes later, the panel appeared to be much calmer, and Griffin was given a chance to answer Behar’s original question about who is actually going to vote for Pence in the GOP primary.
At the same time, there was still palpable tension between Hostin and Griffin, especially when Hostin asked if she could “talk about Pence now” while promising she “won’t make it personal.”
With the 2024 race coming into full view, it will be interesting to see if this brief flare-up on The View foreshadows larger fights to come.
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