The Disney-owned ABC political talk show program, “The View,” hasn’t had true conservative representation on its daytime panel since Meghan McCain’s 2021 retirement.
After a few conservative sit-ins offered an occasional rebuke to the unhinged commentary peddled by the four permanent co-hosts, the producers who tested new hires for McCain’s replacement ultimately went with another talking head from CNN.
“I was told when I left, they were looking for a real conservative,” McCain told Variety Magazine in the fall of 2021. “I gave them a list. None of them have tested.”
If the panelists really wanted an on-air challenge, they could have brought on Ann Coulter, who wasn’t even offered a chance to audition. Alyssa Farah Griffin, on the other hand, checked the boxes “The View” actually wanted, as a Trump defector happy to reverse herself on nearly every issue to land lucrative television gigs.
On Friday, the absence of an authentic conservative on air was felt again when far-left actress Jane Fonda put the program back in the headlines for demanding the death of political opponents.
Fonda was offering commentary on abortion while she was there to promote her latest movie, “Moving On.”
“We have experienced many decades now of having agency over our body, of being able to determine when and how many children to have,” Fonda said. “We know what that feels like, we know what that’s done for our lives. We’re not going back. I don’t care what the laws are, we’re not going back.”
“That’s the activist,” said a beaming Sunny Hostin.
“That’s Jane,” Joy Behar chimed in.
“She probably will get a Nobel Prize,” Hostin added.
“It’s the truth, it is the truth,” Fonda said. “We’re gonna fight.”
Behar asked Fonda about her proposed methods: “Besides marching and protesting, what else do you suggest?”
“Murder,” Fonda said, provoking an eruption of laughter on stage and in the audience, including from Farah Griffin.
Behar tried to dismiss the comment before Fonda doubled down.
“She’s just kidding,” Behar said. “Wait a second … They’ll pick up on that.”
Fonda gave the co-host a stern look in response, raising doubts about the comment being a joke.
It was far from the first time someone said something crazy on “The View.” It wasn’t even an isolated incident last week.
After Fox News’ Tucker Carlson aired new footage from the Capitol building taped on Jan. 6, 2021, Whoopi Goldberg demanded Carlson’s journalism be outlawed.
“This should be against the law,” Goldberg said of Carlson’s reporting. “You should not be able to lie to the American [people] knowingly.”
If Goldberg had actually watched any of the Jan. 6 tapes published by Fox News last week, she might have realized her own program’s hyperbolic coverage of the Capitol riot would trigger her proposed criminal liability.
Farah Griffin offered no defense of Fox News’ blockbuster reporting, which undermined the left-wing narrative of a “deadly insurrection” at the Capitol. In fact, she went on to trash it.
“I think Tucker Carlson is more destructive to American political discourse than Donald Trump, and I think he’s more powerful,” the “conservative” co-host added. “He says insane things, he pits Americans against each other, knowingly, lying to them.”
That’s quite the commentary from a panelist who is ostensibly supposed to represent the millions of conservatives who tune into Carlson’s program on a nightly basis. But of course, the producers of “The View” never had any real intention of speaking to them, let alone for them.
