The liberal hosts of The View went soft on President Biden’s “kids in cages,” on Friday’s show. Despite many angry outbursts from ABC co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin over the Trump administration’s handling of illegal immigrant minors crossing the border, they couldn’t find any harsh criticism for President Biden’s much maligned border crisis.
Friday co-host Ana Navarro downplayed the Biden administration’s “problem” while arguing the onus was on America to give more aid and funding to help our "neighbors" in Mexico and Central America.
Hostin agreed, saying the issue here was the United States wasn’t giving enough “housing” to illegal immigrants. She slammed any criticism of the Biden’s handling of immigration as a right-wing “distraction” before blaming who else? President Trump:
I think it's going to be one of his biggest challenges because the Trump administration left this country in such a mess, right? ...[B]ut when you think about this notion of kids in cages, I think that's a distraction. I think conservatives and Republicans are using it as a talking point to imply somehow that the Trump administration's approach had been right all along, and we know that that is incorrect. That approach was a disaster, it was inhumane, and what the Trump administration was doing was ripping children from their families, from their parents, from their guardians, and then placing them in cages. What is happening now is different.
I think the real issue though is a lack of migrant housing, right? So they are being held in these facilities that are cages. They're adult holding cells. They shouldn't be held there, but there is, you know, I think the Biden administration is committed to handling this in a more humane way. There is no comparison to be made with the way the Trump administration handled this crisis at the border.
If blaming the past president for the radical increase in illegal immigrants flooding the border as soon as Biden took office wasn’t absurd enough, Hostin and Behar then defended Biden's mangled handling of the crisis:
HOSTIN: The reason there's more of a crisis is because people knew the Biden administration would be handling their children more humanely. That is why we're seeing the uptick in migration here.
BEHAR: That's right.
HOSTIN: In migration here.
BEHAR: That is exactly why they're coming here. It is a problem, but I have my money on Joe Biden.
How refreshing. A President who is more concerned about protecting the citizens of another country than protecting his own!
Meghan McCain scoffed that her co-hosts were "just not accurate" and that drug cartels were also coming across the border. Behar told her to give Biden a break as they went to commercial: "Give the guy a chance. Give the guy a chance, Meghan!"
After the break, the panel exploded again, as Sara Haines expressed sympathy for Biden.
“So immigration is really easy to criticize, and a lot more complicated to fix,” Haines lectured, before alleging President Trump had “racist” “xenophobic” immigration policies. She argued the Biden administration was doing “a lot” and “we need to give them more than 54 days”:
There are a lot of things that need to be done, which he's working on. They're working on some Ellis island hubs that are going to help process faster. They're working on getting more judges, social workers, definitely more housing facilities. They're also making it possible for some of these countries for kids to -- to apply from their country rather than come to the border, which is safer for everyone. There's a lot of work to be done here. So I think we need to give them more than 54 days.
But McCain called out Haines’s “factually inaccurate” claim that Republicans had been silent on immigration reform for the past four years. As Haines cut in to say she would rather have kids “held” than be released back to their countries, McCain shot back, “I'm glad you're okay with them being held in jail-like facilities.”
The panel exploded at McCain and Behar lectured, “stop it,” before calling for their mics to be cut.
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Read a partial transcript below:
The View
03/12/2021
11:25 a.m. EasternJOY BEHAR: Okay. Sunny, do you think this is Biden's biggest challenge?
SUNNY HOSTIN: I think it's going to be one of his biggest challenges because the Trump administration left this country in such a mess, right? So you have sort of the global pandemic which I think was the most pressing issue, which actually now the Biden administration I think has handled really, really well, but when you think about this notion of kids in cages, I think that's a distraction. I think conservatives and Republicans are using it as a talking point to imply somehow that the Trump administration's approach had been right all along, and we know that that is incorrect. That approach was a disaster, it was inhumane, and what the Trump administration was doing was ripping children from their families, from their parents, from their guardians, and then placing them in cages. What is happening now is different.
These are unaccompanied minors. These are minors without their parents, without their families, and we know as mothers that it takes a real crisis for a parent to have their children travel and migrate to an unknown country for a better life, and President Biden has said that the real core issues, the root causes of migration are crime, corruption and poverty. Those are systemic issues that we have in this country, and so this is a very difficult issue. I think the real issue though is a lack of migrant housing, right? So they are being held in these facilities that are cages. They're adult holding cells. They shouldn't be held there, but there is, you know, I think the Biden administration is committed to handling this in a more humane way. There is no comparison to be made with the way the Trump administration handled this crisis at the border.
BEHAR: Right.
HOSTIN: And there's a reason there’s more of a crisis -- let me just say this very quickly. The reason there's more of a crisis is because people knew the Biden administration would be handling their children more humanely. That is why we're seeing the uptick in migration here.
BEHAR: That's right.
HOSTIN: In migration here.
BEHAR: That is exactly why they're coming here. It is a problem, but I have my money on Joe Biden.
[cross-talk as Meghan cuts in]
MCCAIN: That’s just not accurate.
BEHAR: I feel that Joe Biden has empathy and I think he’ll figure this out--
MCCAIN: Drug cartels see the opening in this and people have to pay drug cartels
BEHAR: Maybe that’s true too.
[cross-talk]
BEHAR: We’re going to find out soon. Give the guy a chance. Give the guy a chance, Meghan. We’ll talk about this more when we come back.
