ABC's The View returned to the airwaves in 2024 by discussing Colorado's Democrat-appointed Supreme Court and Maine's elected Democrat Secretary of State deciding to rip Donald Trump's name off the Republican primary ballot. Everyone on the panel is horrified at Trump getting a second term, but they split three to two on the ballot removal. Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin warned that this precedent could backfire bigly on Democrats.
Whoopi Goldberg was upset there could be a reversal: “They say it will be up to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide if they bar him. If you do this kind of stuff, you can't run, but apparently we always have to recheck with this fool because every time he does something they say, oh, well, they didn't mean him.”
Sunny Hostin claimed “this is black letter constitutional law, and Section 3 of the 14th Amendment basically says if you participated in an insurrection against this country, you may not hold office. You may not do it…Because it's about the civil war and didn't want anyone who tried to take over this country by force to be able to hold office ever again. That is what our Framers wanted, right?”
No one stepped in to correct Sunny – the 14th Amendment passed in 1866, which isn’t the time of the Framers.
Then she argued no one can argue Trump was never convicted or even charged with insurrection: "Jefferson Davis participated in an insurrection against the U.S. in 1861 and became ineligible to run for president. By the way, he was not convicted of that. And so that argument is off the table."
MAINE, COLORADO REMOVE TRUMP FROM BALLOT: After the two states disqualified former Pres. Trump from the Republican primary because of his activity surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, #TheView co-hosts weigh in. https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/QKg7MfR2rr
— The View (@TheView) January 2, 2024
Sara Haines said she agreed Trump was guilty of insurrection, but said she agreed with Democrats like Gov. Gavin Newsom and David Axelrod that “this would really cause a division that's almost insurmountable and someone who believes January 6th is that bad, one, I don't think the Supreme Court will hold this and overturn it. I bet it's a 9-0 vote and I don't think they would hold this….they should leave it to the voters.”
A flustered Joy Behar thought “the Law” is with the liberals. “I think the law will stand and people said follow the law. Listen, if you're not going to follow an amendment, why don't we have Taylor Swift run for president?” (Taylor Swift will be 35 in December...)
Alyssa Farah announced that “as a conservative,” she thinks it will backfire. “So say that this [ballot removal] ends up holding. Donald Trump… if he, God forbid, becomes president about this time next year he could weaponize that same ruling to keep Democrats off the ballot in the same way he says Joe Biden is a threat to democracy, he will say this Democrat engaged in insurrection.”
Hostin shot back: “The Democrats aren’t going to start a January 6th insurrection.” The crowd applauded.
Farah said the problem is a third of Americans don’t think the 2020 election is legitimate, and taking their vote for Trump off the ballot will make the election look illegitimate. Goldberg then said basically, Farah was saying “people are so dumb” they don’t realize Trump was removed because he’s an insurrectionist. Like Behar, she cited the law: “If you’re so afraid to make the law stick, then there’s no point in having them!”
Hostin concluded that the conservative justices on the Supreme Court “lied” when they told Congress as nominees that they were traditionalists, because they voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade. Behar agreed: I don't trust them at all."
