
The View cohosts are still reeling in the aftermath of Sen. Chuck Schumer’s Tuesday morning appearance on the talk show, which led to a heated debate between Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines at the Hot Topics table the following day.
After the panel grilled Schumer on his controversial vote in support of a Republican-led spending bill, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi criticized Schumer for voting in support of the conservative measure that the politician said he did in order to avoid what he felt would lead to a much more harmful government shutdown.
Joy Behar praised Schumer for looking out for the country’s veterans and their benefits, especially as she has a personal connection to the subject. “I hate to make speeches, but my father and my uncles all fought in World War II so that we would not have a fascist in the White House, and this is what we’re getting right now,” she said. “I can almost cry today for these people, these vets who are losing everything. Why don’t the Democrats go out there and march and stop fighting with each other? I’m sick of it.”
Hostin, who told Schumer to his face that she felt he “caved” to Republicans with his vote, responded by noting that the Democrats are not fighting “a unified fight,” in her estimation.
“They are. No, no, no, the fact that Nancy is now out there criticizing Schumer? Stop it, already. It’s enough,” Behar clapped back, leading Hostin to ask, “You know why she’s criticizing him? Because he should’ve been fighting for that veteran.”
She continued: “He had the opportunity to fight for them. Chuck Schumer caved to the GOP and got nothing…. the choice was not between a no vote on the partisan GOP spending bill and a possible shutdown, it was a choice between a no vote and forcing Republicans to explain why they walked away from that possibility of a bipartisan agreement.”
Haines jumped in to predict that “it would’ve been worse if he didn’t concede” to Republican asks.
“That’s what was surprising about Pelosi saying that, because she knows from her experience as Speaker of the House that the negotiator told Chuck Schumer he didn’t have the votes, he couldn’t get the votes. He shut it down,” she said, pointing out that his leadership was evident in that he courted only nine Democrats to follow his lead, which she saw as a specific strategic move. “They had exactly the number they needed to not shut down, so he gave cover to a ton of Democrats that probably, in common sense terms, knew their voters would backlash if they shut the government down.”
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An impassioned Hostin did not back down, telling Haines, “He gave coverage to the GOP to do whatever the heck they want to do,” with Haines getting heated as she replied.
“Nobody’s fooling themselves. It’s a minority, they don’t have the math, it’s just basic math, there are facts there, it’s not an opinion,” said Haines. “If they bent the knee and pushed back just to show the public they were fighting, we would’ve ended up worse off. They would’ve gutted it even more.”
Hostin finished her thought by reiterating that “no one is fighting for the American people and it’s feckless and it’s weak,” to which conservative panelist and former Donald Trump associate Alyssa Farah Griffin said that, under Hostin’s plan, veterans “wouldn’t get their VA benefits” and that “shutting down the government is not fighting for the American people” because “it costs the economy billions of dollars” and “people don’t get their benefits” as a result.
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On Tuesday, Schumer sat for an interview with the cohosts, and explained his decision to side with Republicans on the vote.
He cited SNAP, mass transit, and Medicaid as examples of things that could be deemed “not essential” by conservatives in power, with “no check” to get those things back on track if they lost sight of them amid a shutdown. “When you’re a leader, if you see a real crisis a little bit down the road, your job is to stand up and say, ‘We can’t do that!'” he said.
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC.
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