After ignoring the federal bribery indictment of Democratic Senator Bob Menendez (NJ) last week, the liberal ladies of The View finally got around to mentioning it on Monday, after NewsBusters called them out. A majority of the cast had harsh words for the allegedly corrupt Senator, but faux-conservative co-host Ana Navarro praised Menendez, bizarrely bragged about bringing some of her “wealth clients” to meet with him, and prayed that there was a “logical explanation” for why he had gold bars and wads of cash squirreled away in his jackets.
When it was her turn to speak about Menendez, Navarro opened by noting that she had “known Bob Menendez for almost 30 years” and that she had “worked with him on many, many issues.”
Navarro boasted: “There is not an important issue to the Latino community -- there is not an important issue about freedom around the world, about freedom in Latin America that he has not been on the forefront of. He is the most senior Latino in Congress. He was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
She went on to lament “this is personally hard for me” and that she was “shaken” by the bribery allegations. She also bizarrely admitted to bringing her “wealthy clients” (presumably from her time working as a lobbyist) to meet Menendez:
I can tell you I have worked with him time and time again, brought many wealthy clients to him, brought many issues in front of him. Never has there been any hint of impropriety. Never has he hinted about a payback or anything like that. So, I'm having a very hard time reconciling the evidence I saw, shown on TV with the Bob Menendez I have known for almost 30 years. This is personally hard for me. But, you know, when I saw all the evidence I'm shaken.
“I'm hoping against hope that there is some sort of logical explanation,” she proclaimed. “This looks ugly. This looks bad. This is hard to explain. I can't come up with an explanation.”
Navarro had previously defended President Biden from the corruption allegations that involved his son Hunter, and decried Republican scrutiny of the man she was supporting for president in 2024. But with the new allegations against her personal friend, suddenly corruption was something Congress needed to get a hold of. She even compared Menendez to Justice Clarence Thomas (Click “expand”):
NAVARRO: I do think that there is a bigger problem here than Bob Menendez. The problem here is Bob Menendez's wife cashing in on his name, or Joe Biden's son cashing in on his name, or Jared Kushner cashing in on that, or, you know, Clarence Thomas -- Clarence Thomas was having his mama's house paid for as well by a billionaire.
HOSTIN: A lot of trips.
NAVARRO: So – So, there's got to be some consistency, and at some point, Congress needs to get ahold of this swampiness going on, and they have got to set, you know, deal with the idea that they can't just have their stupid family members making money off their own name!
And she wasn’t the only one to have largely muted criticism of Menendez. Racist co-host and former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin said she was “reluctant to say he should resign because we're all innocent until proven guilty.”
The harshest thing Hostin had to say about him was just mocking how he didn’t give the gold bars to a “cousin” to “hold” for him:
But, like dude. Gold bars, like, in your Senate jacket with your name on it? Like, everyone has that cousin that will hold those gold bars for you. You can say, you know, ‘Can you hold a couple of gold bars for me?’ They may take one or two, but they're going to hold it for you.
“Like, he had cash in the walls and cash in the closets. It's just so in your face that it's disgraceful,” she declared, also ridiculously comparing him to Thomas. “It's disgraceful, and why do you think you can get away with it? I'm tired of hearing about Supreme Court justices taking luxury trips with billionaires.”
At no point did they explain why they ignored the indictment last week despite the story breaking hours before their show aired.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s The View
September 25, 2023
11:04:39 a.m. Eastern(…)
SUNNY HOSTIN: I'm always -- you know. I'm reluctant to say he should resign because we're all innocent until proven guilty. But, like dude. Gold bars, like, in your Senate jacket with your name on it? Like, everyone has that cousin that will hold those gold bars for you. You can say, you know, ‘can you hold a couple of gold bars for me?’ They may take one or two, but they're going to hold it for you. Like, he had cash in the walls and cash in the closets. It's just so in your face that it's disgraceful. It's disgraceful, and why do you think you can get away with it? I'm tired of hearing about Supreme Court justices taking luxury trips with billionaires. I'm tired of hearing about –
[Cheers and applause]
HOSTIN: -- you know, I'm tired of hearing that. Let's bring grace back into the service of government. You're serving the people.
ANA NAVARRO: Look. This one for me -- no. This one for me is not easy. I have known Bob Menendez for almost 30 years. I have worked with him on many, many issues. There is not an important issue to the Latino community -- there is not an important issue about freedom around the world, about freedom in Latin America that he has not been on the forefront of. He is the most senior Latino in Congress. He was the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
I can tell you I have worked with him time and time again, brought many wealthy clients to him, brought many issues in front of him. Never has there been any hint of impropriety. Never has he hinted about a payback or anything like that. So, I'm having a very hard time reconciling the evidence I saw, shown on TV with the Bob Menendez I have known for almost 30 years. This is personally hard for me.
But, you know, when I saw all the evidence I'm shaken. I'm hoping against hope that there is some sort of logical explanation, but I also know Bob Menendez. I know Bob Menendez is not going to resign. He beat this once, you know, he's thinking, ‘I'm, you know, I can fight this. I'm going to fight this.’ He's -- I don't think he's going to resign. I think he's going to go to trial on this.
This looks ugly. This looks bad. This is hard to explain. I can't come up with -- with an explanation, but I do think that there is a bigger problem here than Bob Menendez. The problem here is Bob Menendez's wife cashing in on his name, or Joe Biden's son cashing in on his name, or Jared Kushner cashing in on that, or, you know, Clarence Thomas -- Clarence Thomas was having his mama's house paid for as well by a billionaire.
HOSTIN: A lot of trips.
NAVARRO: So – So, there's got to be some consistency, and at some point Congress needs to get ahold of this swampiness going on, and they have got to set, you know, deal with the idea that they can't just have their stupid family members making money off their own name!
(…)
