ABC’s first post-election episode of The View was very sober and, at times, intense.
The show’s hosts had a diverse mixture of reactions to the news that Donald Trump has captured the presidency once again, defeating vice president Kamala Harris by what appears to be a significant margin.
While acknowledging that none of the show’s five hosts wanted Trump to win, they each had a unique take on the news.
The strongest reaction came from Sunny Hostin: “I’m profoundly disturbed. In 2016, we didn’t know what we would get from a Trump administration, but we know now, and we now he will have almost unfettered power. I don’t worry about myself, actually. I worry about the working class. I worry about my mother, a retired teacher. I worry about our elderly and their Social Security and their Medicare. I worry about my children’s future, especially my daughter, who now has less rights than I have. And I remember my father telling me many, many years ago that I was the first person in his family to enjoy full civil rights. Now I have less civil rights than I had when he told me that. So again, I’m profoundly disturbed that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution did not prevent someone who participated in an insurrection from becoming president of the United States. … As a woman of color, I was so hopeful that a mixed-race woman married to a Jewish guy could be elected president of this country. And I think that [the outcome] had nothing to do with policy. I think this was a referendum of cultural resentment in this country.”
While the most sanguine response came from Alyssa Farah Griffin, who served in Trump’s communication’s office during his first term: “Is it the outcome I wanted? No, but tens of millions of Americans — our friends, our neighbors, our family members — voted for Donald Trump. They are good, decent people who are patriots and love this country, and I can’t speak to what drove them to this, but I think it is a moment for us to listen to each other … We need to bring down the temperature, the name calling, the demonizing … and I think there are some lessons from it. I think we forget about rural America. I think the working class feels left behind. They feel like the powerful, the elite, only care about them and their power. And [Trump] spoke to them. We may not have liked his words, but they turned out for him. I mean, the map was beyond [Ronald] Reagan. We need to start listening more about the concerns of everyday Americans. … I have faith that some good, decent people are going to work for him.”
Whoopi Goldberg reacted to Griffin’s comment, by noting: “You can always say, ‘Oh, [Harris] should have done this.’ She was everywhere, she talked to everybody — and people didn’t come out. I don’t know why, and it doesn’t even matter … it’s hard for some of us to hear that rhetoric after 50 years. You know, after 70 years, to hear that rhetoric coming back, to hear things that came out of people’s mouths that we all decided as a public group that we weren’t going to talk to each other that way. I feel OK when I hear somebody talking down to somebody else, I’m all right with that. What I’m not all right with is trying to further wreck the country.”
Goldberg added that she will refuse to say Trump’s name, noting, “I’m still not going to say his name. That’s not going to change.” She was also one of the celebrities who said they would leave the country of Trump won in 2016.
Opined Joy Behar: “My takeaway is that the system works. We live in a democracy. People spoke. This is what people wanted. I vehemently disagree with the decision that Americans made, but I feel very, very hopeful that we have a democratic system in this country. … It’s been very difficult, but we have a country — if we can keep it.”
The reaction follows a slew of Hollywood and media outpouring over the election result.
Hollywood celebrities reacted on X with a mixture of fatalism and fury: “Goodbye, America. It was nice knowing you.”
CNN commentator Van Jones gave a grim analysis on the cable news channel’s election desk: “So it’s easy to blow this off — ‘Oh, look at the elite, they’re gonna get their comeuppance.’ It’s not the elite who are going to pay the price. It’s people who woke up this morning with a dream and are going to bed with a nightmare.”
Meanwhile, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart offered a message of hope to viewers: “I promise you, this is not the end.”
