‘Can't Believe’: Sunny Hostin Justifies Skepticism of Trump 2024 Win

Nicholas Fondacaro
June 8th, 2026 5:03 PM

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Throughout 2025, ABC’s purported “bona fide news program” The View repeatedly suggested that President Donald Trump stole the 2024 presidential election, without evidence and without even a theory about how it could have been done. However, during Monday’s episode, co-host Sunny Hostin proclaimed that peddlers of such conspiracy theories were justified in their concerns because it was just so shocking of an outcome. She also claimed that it’s somehow better for states to take a long time to count votes.

Their conversation about election skepticism was spurred on by Trump’s recent interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, where he reiterated his claims about the 2020 presidential election results.  

“Well, he's never provided any credible evidence of election fraud!” moderato Whoopi Goldberg shouted. “Why is it every time they lose, it's election fraud? And every time we win, it's election fraud? Why is it always fraud? What do you make of this?”

Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin ignored The View’s repeated election denials of 2024’s results just so she could mock Republicans: “You don't have a lot of Republicans screaming that the 2024 election was stolen, because Donald Trump won.”

 

 

Hypocritically, The View had repeatedly claimed that all Republican victories were the result of cheating and rigged elections. They have openly suggested it was the only way Republicans could ever win.

With California still counting votes for nearly a week, Farah Griffin did lament that they needed to change the laws to allow them to get results the night of the election. But Goldberg and Hostin loudly decried the idea; with Hostin saying it was completely “not impossible” for California to achieve what nearly every other state in the union was able to (Click "expand"):

FARAH GRIFFIN: But I will say, people tend to not trust elections when it takes a real long time to count votes. L.A. and California in general need to figure out how to do this quicker. Change the laws so you can do it in one day.

GOLDBERG: NO! [Scoffs]

FARAH GRIFFIN: Florida has a lot of mail-in and they get their results the same night. It makes people feel like, 'oh, there's something off,' but it's not. It's how their rules are, they're dumb rules.

[Crosstalk]

HOSTIN: I feel the exact opposite. I think if someone is taking their time to count the votes, I think if someone is looking at every single thing, because in California, it's the most populous state. We all know that. (…) And so, it does take a long time to be right, to do it well.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Why can Florida do it right in one night though?

HOSTIN: I don't think you can do it when you have 23 million registered voters! It's just not possible!

 

 

What got Hostin to openly back the conspiracy that Trump stole the 2024 election was pretend independent co-host Sara Haines lamenting that election denial was becoming mainstream in the Democratic Party. Hostin suggested they were right to be skeptical, and receiving a roaring applause from the studio audience:

HAINES: It's mainstream with the Republicans, but Alyssa, I'll take it one step further, Democrats now are questioning the elections. They went from having an 89 percent pre-2024 belief in the system to 64 percent trust in the system.

HOSTIN: And people can't believe Trump won! [Laughter]

[Applause]

FARAH GRIFFIN: That's not the flex you think it is.

 

 

First, Haines was misleading that Democrats were only now engaging in election denialism. Looking back, Democrats rejected the results of the 2000 election. More recently, they pushed the Russia Collusion Hoax because Democrats refused to believe they lost to Trump legitimately.

In fact, Hostin had pushed the conspiracy theory then too. Only apologizing six years later when then-newly minted White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre took on that role and was being criticized for it. At the time, Goldberg defended Jean-Pierre by saying she was “doing her part.” What that “part” was for, Goldberg never explained.

Hostin’s renewed support for election denial was yet another example of her blatant double standard on the subject, where her claims were facts and others were conspiracy theories.

The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:

ABC’s The View
June 8, 2026
11:04:18 a.m. Eastern

(…)

WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Well, he's never provided any credible evidence of election fraud! You know, I guess everybody's upset, because [laughter] Spencer Pratt didn't do what they all thought he going to do. They all thought he was going to whoop walk away with it and it didn't happen. Why is it every time they lose, it's election fraud? And every time we win, it's election fraud? Why is it always fraud? What do you make of this?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Well, that right there is kind of the point. You don't have a lot of Republicans screaming that the 2024 election was stolen, because Donald Trump won.

(…)

11:05:48 a.m. eastern

FARAH GRIFFIN: But I will say, people tend to not trust elections when it takes a real long time to count votes. L.A. and California in general need to figure out how to do this quicker. Change the laws so you can do it in one day.

GOLDBERG: NO! [Scoffs]

FARAH GRIFFIN: Florida has a lot of mail-in and they get their results the same night. It makes people feel like, 'oh, there's something off,' but it's not. It's how their rules are, they're dumb rules.

[Crosstalk]

HOSTIN: I feel the exact opposite. I think if someone is taking their time to count the votes, I think if someone is looking at every single thing, because in California, it's the most populous state. We all know that.

And they actually have signature verification. So, they look at every single signature. And if those signatures do not match what they have on file, they then go back to the person and they say, was this you?'

And so, it does take a long time to be right, to do it well.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Why can Florida do it right in one night though?

HOSTIN: I don't think you can do it when you have 23 million registered voters! It's just not possible! And so - it's - it's -

FARAH GRIFFIN: I think it is.

HOSTIN: It's not possible.

[Crosstalk and applause]

FARAH GRIFFIN: It's the mail-in voting, they don't start counting it until Election Day. You could start counting it before.

HOSTIN: But it accounts for 80 percent of votes. So, that's the problem. Mail in voting counts for 80 percent of the votes. The only time Republicans started having a problem with mail-in voting is when Democrats started to use mail-in voting more.

(…)

11:07:41 a.m. Eastern

SARA HAINES: But if you're really reflecting on yourself, this problem has been about a decade long. Because prior to 2016, I never heard people talking about, it was a fringe amount of people that thought, there's a conspiracy here. It was not mainstream.

It's mainstream with the Republicans, but Alyssa, I'll take it one step further, Democrats now are questioning the elections. They went from having an 89 percent pre-2024 belief in the system to 64 percent trust in the system.

HOSTIN: And people can't believe Trump won! [Laughter]

[Applause]

FARAH GRIFFIN: That's not the flex you think it is. That means people aren't trusting the system.

HAINES: But my point here is it started with the QAnon fringes, it went mainstream with the Republicans, it's starting to go mainstream with independents and Democrats.

The big problem here is when you divide the ranks of all people, the voting republic that have the currency of a vote, and you say, 'it's rigged! It doesn't matter,' we only get 64 percent of eligible voters to our polls anyway.

The way to keep power consolidated at the top is to create division among the bottom. There's a bigger problem at play here, that is not partisan. It needs to be stopped. We cannot keep doing that.

There's a certain amount of suspension of trust. I don't believe elections to any extreme level have ever been rigged. I stand by that. There's been no proof of any other thing.

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