On The View Tuesday, Every co-host was present over satellite to comment on yesterday’s raucous coronavirus press briefing. Liberal co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin gave glowing reviews of the combative White House press corps, with Behar suggesting the press take her up on pulling a bizarre stunt in the briefing room. After co-host Meghan McCain disagreed with her co-hosts’ positive assessment of the press, Hostin got even more dramatic, declaring the reporters were “our last defense” against Trump’s “dictatorship.”
After marveling at video clips from Monday’s briefing, the hosts complained about Trump claiming he could override state leadership and re-open the country if he wanted to. Sunny Hostin hyperventilated that Trump got away with being impeached so now he thought he was a “king”:
“He was allowed to be impeached but not thrown out of government, so I think he's operating with this notion that I am the king, I can do whatever I want. We're all suffering for it!” she whined.
Whoopi repeated the media’s mantra that the video played during the briefing was “propaganda” while asking Behar to comment on “dictator” Trump.
Behar gushed over the White House reporters “finally” calling out “criminal” Trump’s “lies.” She also offered her own strange suggestion that reporters carry out dramatic stunts in the briefing room to showcase how the president was a liar:
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Well, no but I don't think anybody's buying it. I mean, at this briefing, it featured a propaganda style video produced by the White House. Now, Joy, I know you're a big fan of no dictators here. What did you make out of this spectacle?
JOY BEHAR: Well, first of all, let me give props to Kaitlan Collins because finally the press is questioning him and calling him out on his lies. Every criminal president is asked the following question: what did you know and when did you know it? So there's a big gap of what he already knew in February. He knew a pandemic was coming, and what he did was he played golf. So that is a true statement, and Kaitlan Collins is nailing him on it, okay? And I think that going forward, all of these reporters, every time he lies, they should take out a whistle and blow a whistle so that they would be the country's real whistle-blowers, or else somebody in the corner should have a pinocchio with a nose growing. We must be told about the lies because they're continuous and I've always maintained that this is the worst thing about this presidency, is his lying, because that is what really creates dictatorships.
Meghan McCain agreed with Hostin that Trump was “acting like a King” but she disagreed with her co-hosts that the press was helping matters with their combative tone. That set off her co-hosts who blamed “Mitch McConnell” and defended the press as “our last defense.”
JOY BEHAR: Just to answer Meghan, that basically it was the Republican party led by Mitch Mcconnell that destroyed all of the possibility that he would not be treated like a king by throwing everything out the window. There is no -- there's no checks and balances.
SUNNY HOSTIN: It seems to me that the press is our last defense. It’s just our last defense. The press is holding the president to account. We have no one else right now holding the president to account and I agree with joy, I think we saw what we needed to see. We finally see a press corps that's saying who told you you had the ultimate power, Mr. President? Who told you that? You don't have the ultimate power and I think they did the right thing.
Whoopi cut off Hostin to go to commercial. Afterwards, Hostin attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci for “backtracking” from his comments made to cable news outlets that had the country acted sooner, we would have prevented more deaths from the coronavirus. Even though Fauci was correcting the media after they spun those comments as direct rebukes against President Trump, Hostin claimed the media spin was the “accurate” take:
I think we all were very impressed so far with Dr. Fauci's leadership in terms of this pandemic, and I think when we saw this backtracking from him, it was very disappointing. I think his first response to Chris Wallace over the weekend, his responses to Jake tapper were the accurate responses. He was saying, had we pulled back earlier, had we practiced social distancing earlier, we may have saved lives. However, because of the backlash that he got, all of a sudden he was backtracking probably so that he could stay on the front lines, probably so he could keep his job and help the American people. But that does deserve some pushback because you cannot do that just so that this king president won't fire you, you know? It's disingenuous at best.
Read a partial transcript, below:
The View
4/14/20
SUNNY HOSTIN: It perhaps comes from the fact that he's been able to, with the Republican-led senate, to do whatever he wants, right? He was allowed to be impeached but not thrown out of government, so I think he's operating with this notion that I am the king, I can do whatever I want. We're all suffering for it.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Well, no but I don't think anybody's buying it. I mean, at this briefing, it featured a propaganda style video produced by the White House. Now, Joy, I know you're a big fan of no dictators here. What did you make out of this spectacle?
JOY BEHAR: Well, first of all, let me give props to Kaitlan Collins because finally the press is questioning him and calling him out on his lies. Every criminal president is asked the following question: what did you know and when did you know it? So there's a big gap of what he already knew in February. He knew a pandemic was coming, and what he did was he played golf. So that is a true statement, and Kaitlan Collins is nailing him on it, okay? And I think that going forward, all of these reporters, every time he lies, they should take out a whistle and blow a whistle so that they would be the country's real whistle-blowers, or else somebody in the corner should have a pinocchio with a nose growing. We must be told about the lies because they're continuous and I've always maintained that this is the worst thing about this presidency, is his lying, because that is what really creates dictatorships.
WHOOPI: Well, Meghan, what did you get out of all of this? I'm sure you were watching some, if not all of it. But what's your take on it?
MEGHAN MCCAIN: Yeah, I think there's two different things to break down here. The first is this acrimonious relationship between the press and the president has obviously reached a fever pitch yesterday and I for one am sick of the kabuki theatre where a journalist asked an incendiary question and the president reacts in an incendiary way. I was particularly insulted in the questioning of Dr. Fauci. The press cannot talk to Dr. Fauci like he's Sean Spicer. He seems to be the only one holding this country together and giving both sides good faith on what's happening, going forward. He actually started the tone of the press conference. He was very angry with the implication that he was somehow not somehow in control of what he was saying, not in control of what he was doing. I took it as an implication that he was sort of a puppet of the administration. This is a man with a long, storied career who has helped this country through such things as the AIDS epidemic and the ebola virus epidemic that happened in this country so He deserves a lot more respect that he got yesterday. I can never apologize or be okay with the President Trump's behavior but I also think the press needs to understand that people are scared and we really should try and make this as civil as possible on both ends and I actually didn't like what a lot of the press was doing.
I also think it's interesting that I believe last Monday on this very show I said I'm worried about government overreach, I'm worried about President Trump's tendency to have draconian measures that he could possibly put in place because I, as a life-long conservative, am always weary and skeptical of our civil liberties being impeached. I think in this moment we're looking at the possibility of President Trump as you said earlier, Sunny, that he does have this tendency to think of himself as a king rather than a president and I think it's something that should be alarming and it's why we should always be keeping our government in check because if you like having a president like President Obama that has ultimate authority just because you like him, ultimately another president will come along that has that same kind of authority that you don't like which is why it's so dangerous. I just think it's interesting that the press seems to be a week behind on the conversations that a lot of people in conservative circles have been having for a while now.
[cross-talk]
JOY BEHAR: Just to answer Meghan, that basically it was the Republican party led by Mitch McConnell that destroyed all of the possibility that he would not be treated like a king by throwing everything out the window. There is no -- there's no checks and balances.
MCCAIN: I think we can have a history lesson on when the government overreach started and it got way out of hand many administrations before. This is a trend that's been growing in a bloviated government and liberties have been given to presidents for many, many administrations past. We can go back and have a history lesson but I don't think it's prudent right now, especially given the fact that the American public just wants to know why there are 60,000 New Yorkers waiting in lines to get their Easter dinner from soup kitchens in New York City, why this virus still seems to be getting out of control, when they can go back to work. These are the questions the American public cares about and I think all of these conversations again in this kabuki theatre that's going on between the press and the president is helping no one. And let me tell you, I'm scared, a lot of Americans are scared, and New Yorkers are very, very scared right now and that's what we should all be focusing on.
[cross-talk]
SUNNY HOSTIN: It seems to me that the press is our last defense. It’s just our last defense. The press is holding the president to account. We have no one else right now holding the president to account and I agree with Joy, I think we saw what we needed to see. We finally see a press corps that's saying who told you you had the ultimate power, Mr. President? Who told you that? You don't have the ultimate power and I think they did the right thing.
