Almost four years to the day, the hosts of The View slammed President Trump for issuing four executive orders in his first week in office as an abuse of power. At the time, Whoopi Goldberg falsely claimed that President Obama had waited “months” to issue any executive orders (he did 5 his first week.) Now that a Democrat is president again, the liberal hosts were thrilled by over 30 executive orders in one week.
On Thursday’s show, Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin went gaga over Biden’s climate change actions. Whoopi gushed, "President Biden is wasting no time cleaning up the mess as you-know-who left!" while Behar hailed, "Joe Biden -- I say bravo to all those executive actions. He's got two years to do all these things before the Republican midterms take us back to the stone age, so let him do it!"
She went on to argue that these environmental actions would create new jobs and establish "clean air" while Republicans just want to "lie" about the coal industry.
But co-host Meghan McCain threw cold water on her co-hosts’ ardent praise for President Biden's executive orders. She also slammed climate czar John Kerry as a hypocrite for demanding changes from the average American while he rides a private jet:
I worry about this seesawing pendulum going back and forth where we're just using executive orders to legislate, and it's not just me and Sara that have criticism of it. The New York Times has come out with pretty hard criticism. The New York Times is not really a bastion of conservativism saying, “this is no way to make law. It's a substitute for legislation.” If you are Joe Biden and you're losing The New York Times on this, and you've made 19 executive orders, as opposed to President Trump who did five in his first week President Obama who did five in his first week, and President Clinton and Bush who did zero, it may be time to start working with the other side, because if you are you're going to legislate the same way President Trump did, this isn't a sea change. This isn’t healing and this isn’t coming together. I thought the whole point of the Biden administration was you weren't going to be like the Trump administration.
...
I am one of those people that thinks it's deeply elitist what he said, is that John Kerry owns a private jet and private jets exert 40 times more carbon emissions than flying on a regular plane, and anyone who is going on television let alone working on an administration that just got rid of 10,000 jobs with the Keystone Pipeline shouldn't be riding around in a private jet. If it is this much of an existential threat as Joe Biden's administration is saying and many people believe, and I too believe, but I have a different way of going about the solutions, then you shouldn't be flying around in private jets and I think part of the problem is for the average Americans, they see the deep hypocrisy in this. Because it seems to be that everyone who should make a sacrifice is middle class or below but no one in the elites need to. I think it's ridiculous.
When Sunny Hostin got her turn to speak, she tried to fact-check McCain and praised Biden’s flurry of executive orders as necessary to undo the “damage” Trump had done:
I think there was so much that the Biden administration had to undo, so much damage. The quickest way to undo that damage would be through executive orders, and if you look at what President Trump did during his one term, he actually signed 220 orders during his one term where George W. Bush signed 291 executive orders over eight years. Barack Obama issued 276 orders over eight years. Bill Clinton, 364 orders over eight years, and so both sides use these executive orders, but President Trump actually used more orders in one term, four years, than all of the other presidents...
Funny, four years ago Joy Behar was saying the same thing to rationalize Obama’s executive orders. It seems abuse of power is only a concern when a Republican is in office.
McCain was actually referring to Biden’s first week in office compared to other presidents, and she still undercounted how many orders Biden has done. According to NBC, Biden has signed over 30 executive orders in his first week, compared to 4 from Trump, 5 from Obama and zero from Bush.
Read the relevant transcript below:
The View
1/28/2021
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Right. What's your feeling on this, Meghan, as you see all this happening? What's your thought about the environment and what he's trying to do?
MEGHAN MCCAIN: Well, my first thought with John Kerry -- I am one of those people that thinks it's deeply elitist what he said, is that John Kerry owns a private jet and private jets exert 40 times more carbon emissions than flying on a regular plane, and anyone who is going on television let alone working on an administration that just got rid of 10,000 jobs with the Keystone Pipeline shouldn't be riding around in a private jet. If it is this much of an existential threat as Joe Biden's administration is saying and many people believe, and I too believe, but I have a different way of going about the solutions, then you shouldn't be flying around in private jets and I think part of the problem is for the average Americans, they see the deep hypocrisy in this. Because it seems to be that everyone who should make a sacrifice is middle class or below but no one in the elites need to. I think it's ridiculous. I also think the way John Kerry's statements have been interpreted to many people, not just on the right, but many people in the middle is learn to code, which was the answer to coal miners, that they just needed to get into another industry and learn to code and he said, learn to use solar. Well solar energy has been around since about the '90s and I saw a clip of Bill Maher talking about how he's trying to install solar panels in California, which is a place and he can't get it installed. So I think it's ridiculous, and in response to what Sara said of executive orders, I think you're 100% right. I worry about this seesawing pendulum going back and forth where we're just using executive orders to legislate, and it's not just me and Sara that have criticism of it. "The New York Times" has come out with pretty hard criticism. The New York Times is not really a bastion of conservativism saying, “this is no way to make law. It's a substitute for legislation.” If you are Joe Biden and you're losing "The New York Times" on this, and you've made 19 executive orders, as opposed to President Trump who did five in his first week President Obama who did five in his first week, and President Clinton and Bush who did zero, it may be time to start working with the other side, because if you are you're going to legislate the same way President Trump did, this isn't a sea change. This isn’t healing and this isn’t coming together. I thought the whole point of the Biden administration was you weren't going to be like the Trump administration.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Sunny, you have something? You have a feeling about what Joe is doing? What President Biden is doing?
SUNNY HOSTIN: Well -- well, you know, I think there was so much that the Biden administration had to undo, so much damage. The quickest way to undo that damage would be through executive orders, and if you look at what President Trump did during his one term, he actually signed 220 orders during his one term where George W. Bush signed 291 executive orders over eight years. Barack Obama issued 276 orders over eight years. Bill Clinton, 364 orders over eight years, and so both sides use these executive orders, but President Trump actually used more orders in one term, four years, than all of the other presidents, and so this is something, again, it's done often and Joe Biden really had his work -- has his work cut out for him, and I think, you know, legislation is always of course, a better way to get things done, and I think we're going to see a lot of legislation, but he -- I don't think it's inappropriate what we're seeing coming out of the Biden administration.
WHOOPI: Well, you know, I think that sometimes, you know, you got to do what you got to do when you think it's right….
