ABC’s The View went into the weekend on Friday with another day of complaining, griping about how Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is the bane of our democracy’s existence for not caving to Democrats while leading a party that hated clean air and drinking water and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), who’s apparently a racist because he opposes the For the People Act.
Co-host Sunny Hostin started things off by complaining Americans would take issue with things uttered by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) because she always “just states the facts” with the latest being her lamentation about how not enough in her party want to stick it to the GOP and enact their own policies en masse.
Speaking of facts, she didn’t have the strongest command of them when she went on this bender about McConnell’s supposed sins (click “expand”):
You know, let's just look at the history of Mitch McConnell. It was McConnell who changed Senate norms to require 60-vote super majorities on every piece of legislation that had any significance. McConnell was responsible for creating the modern judicial confirmation wars. He spearheaded every recent attempt to campaign finance reforms. McConnell cooked up that unprecedented sort of — scorched the Earth scheme to undermine Barack Obama’s presidency because he wanted to make him a one-term president. McConnell imposed the first-ever year-long blockade on the Supreme Court. and McConnell just last month – just last month said his – his priority was 100 percent of his focus was to stop the new administration.
So, shouldn't we believe him? Shouldn't we take him at his word? When someone tells you who they are the first time, you believe them. I believed him. He's not interested in bipartisanship. And that's what Alexandria said.
On 60 votes, it’s long existed for a coalition or party to overcome a filibuster. She should ask her fellow progressives how they used it to their advantage when the GOP controlled the Senate from 2015 through January.
Going to judicial confirmations, that would be now-President Biden and the late Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who put that into place with the hearings and fights for the appointments of Robert Bork (which failed), Miguel Estrada (which also failed), and Justice Clarence Thomas.
And with “campaign finance reforms,” the Citizens United decision set the record on that and it’s liberals who want to completely upturn our elections with the dangerous For the People Act.
Concerning McConnell wanting to stop Biden and Barack Obama, one should ask Hostin whether she thought it was worth fighting tooth and nail against recent Republican presidencies.
Co-host Joy Behar was similarly inept, offering a caustic insinuation that those whom she disagrees with politically want the U.S. to be as dirty as possible and a place where many Americans can’t vote:
You know, the America that I want to live in is an America that -- where everybody has a chance to vote, that people are not blocking people from voting. An America and a world where I can breathe clean air and drink clean water. Those are the things that are the priorities right now.
Broadening out her disgust, Behar said opposition to her viewpoints are “a major dereliction of duty, including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who, if they're going to act like Republicans, then, you know, who needs them with friends like that.”
After a commercial break, co-host Whoopi Goldberg tore into Manchin by falsely claiming he opposes the Voting Rights Act and he therefore doesn’t understand “how fragile democracy is” because he’s not Black.
Manchin does, in fact, support a reauthorization and retooling of Voting Rights Act and believes it would be a better path forward than the For the People Act.
Alas, Goldberg continued on and said Black Americans are most attuned to American demoracy because “we had to fight folks who tried to keep us from voting, who tried to keep us from participating in the America that we all had been born into.”
Before moving onto a Pride Month segment, Goldberg dropped the hammer with another playing of the race card: “Joe Manchin has no idea how fragile the democracy is because nobody’s ever tried to take his freedom to vote.”
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To see the relevant View transcript from June 11 (and including the more measured takes from co-hosts Sara Haines and Meghan McCain), click “expand.”
ABC’s The View
June 11, 2021
11:02 a.m. EasternWHOOPI GOLDBERG: That conversation isn't going to go anywhere. I mean, personally, I just think he's been trying to talk infrastructure for a while and if they’re --- if everybody wants to get together and do something, they'll start dealing with the Voting Rights Act, but that's just me. Sunny, what's your thoughts on them working together?
SUNNY HOSTIN: I think Mitch McConnell has made his plan to run out the clock and not be bipartisan really, really clear and I'm not sure why everyone seems to get angry at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she just states the facts, when she just tells it like it is. You know, let's just look at the history of Mitch McConnell. It was McConnell who changed Senate norms to require 60-vote super majorities on every piece of legislation that had any significance. McConnell was responsible for creating the modern judicial confirmation wars. He spearheaded every recent attempt to campaign finance reforms. McConnell cooked up that unprecedented sort of -- scorched the Earth scheme to undermine Barack Obama’s presidency because he wanted to make him a one-term president. McConnell imposed the first-ever year-long blockade on the Supreme Court. and McConnell just last month – just last month said his – his priority was 100 percent of his focus was to stop the new administration. So, shouldn't we believe him? Shouldn't we take him at his word? When someone tells you who they are the first time, you believe them. I believed him. He's not interested in bipartisanship. And that's what Alexandria said.
GOLDBERG: Right. Meghan, what's it going to take to get both sides to actually work together?
MEGHAN MCCAIN: I mean –
GOLDBERG: Can it be done?
MEGHAN MCCAIN: -- I don't know, man. It's pretty depressing. I mean, again, I don't live like this. I don't think this is the way the American government was intended to be designed. I think there's fault in all places and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of the shrewdest politicians in – in America right now. She’s not just some innocent fawn in the woods that’s just “stating the facts.” I mean, she has her own agenda. And she's going after people in her own party like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who, by the way, are people who have, you know, put their money where their mouth is and, you know, working with the other side and trying to get things done in a bipartisan way. And I think that's the spirit of America. That's the America I want to live in and I don't think when Joe Biden became – elected president, “to heal the soul of the nation and to be a president for all Americans” it meant screw Republicans forever, now I'm in power. And if that's the message going forward, I just don't know how you maintain it because it's not a good faith argument.
GOLDBERG: Right. Joy, do you agree with Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez that there are time sensitive issues that need to be addressed now?
JOY BEHAR: You know, the America that I want to live in is an America that -- where everybody has a chance to vote, that people are not blocking people from voting. An America and a world where I can breathe clean air and drink clean water. Those are the things that are the priorities right now. And for the Republicans to block any kind of legislation in those two areas, I think, is really a major dereliction of duty, including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema who, if they're going to act like Republicans, then, you know, who needs them with friends like that? You know, Obama tried to work across the aisle. He actually thought that he was dealing with people who cared about legislation, who wanted to govern and solve problems. Instead, he – he had to deal with a bunch of grifters who -- who want to hold on to power and dismantle democracy. I feel like we're in another groundhog day with Mitch McConnell who keeps saying no every time people want him to say yes to helping the American people. So, yes, Ocasio is correct. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is correct.
GOLBERG: Sara, do you agree with the congresswoman's tweet?
SARA HAINES: She may be speaking accurately to a really depressing reality, but I don't appreciate her term of paddy cake because I think the problem is, right now, when people want bipartisan or they want to elevate themselves and operate with a more reasonable mind or a little more moderate as both parties swing really hard to both ends, that's not being naive. That’s not being a pie-in-the-sky. That's what this democracy was designed to do. I find it highly limiting that there are only two parties because if you don't fall in one or the other, people need you to call yourself something or they don't understand you at all. And I think the fact that if you read Joe Manchin's op-ed, the spirit in which he was addressing the voting act that he voted against was not as simple as he doesn't want rights for people. He actually made a very clear, academic argument for how fragile our democracy is. And if we don't understand after January 6th how fragile the democracy is, maybe we should rewind the video a little bit. So, I appreciate someone who does that and although Joe Biden -- President Biden hasn't been successful in having a ton of across the aisle success, he has not changed on what he ran on, his tone he’s approached it, the conversation he's having, the optics. The rest of it, getting the success is math and it's also proving to be a cage match. So, sadly, I think with Mitch McConnell saying his one goal is to 100 percent stop this administration, I don't know how else you do move forward. Most of the time I'm more of a Joe Manchin about this.
(….)
11:13 a.m. Eastern
GOLDBERG: We're talking about whether bipartisan is a waste of time, given the issues that are facing us as a nation. What I think is interesting is Joe Biden is still willing to reach across the aisle to people who don't even believe he is the duly elected President. So, I'm glad to see him continue to try because you don't want to be the people who aren't trying to do it. I always feel like, you know, you have to keep going back and back and back each time and you'll come to a point maybe after the first year of his presidency where he'll take a look over and say, “I tried with y'all and you don't want to be bothered and now we're moving on to something else.” And I, you know, I know there's a lot at stake. I heard what you said, Sara, and I have to tell you, the – this man voting against the voting rights act, nobody knows how fragile democracy is better than people of color. Nobody knows better than us cause we know we had to fight folks who tried to keep us from voting, who tried to keep us from participating in the America that we all had been born into. So, this is one of those things where you – it's really hard to watch Democrats say “no, no I'm not going to do it. You know, it's a fragile democracy.” Joe Manchin has no idea how fragile the democracy is because nobody’s ever tried to take his freedom to vote.
