The hosts of The View gleefully mocked and belittled House Republicans on Monday over last week’s near-violent chaos surrounding the election of Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, comparing the GOP lawmakers to “thugs” and the Real Housewives.
After nearly a week-long stalemate that saw roughly 20 far-right conservatives refuse to budge and support McCarthy after a dozen rounds of voting, 14 of the holdouts finally flipped their votes after McCarthy offered a bevy of concessions. Republicans, however, still needed to convince some of the six bitter “Never Kevin” insurgents to switch sides for McCarthy to secure the speaker’s gavel.
Heading into late Friday night’s vote, GOP leadership appeared fully confident that the dramatic standoff would come to an end. Instead, MAGA Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) waited until the last second to vote “present,” denying McCarthy the speakership for a 14th straight round.
Following yet another humiliating defeat for McCarthy, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) nearly came to blows with the showboating Florida lawmaker, prompting another Republican congressman to literally muzzle Rogers and pull him away. Eventually, Gaetz made a deal with McCarthy and the GOP rebels all voted “present” in the 15th round, lowering the threshold enough for the Republican leader to win.
During Monday’s broadcast of the ABC daytime chat show, host Whoopi Goldberg aired a clip of Rogers attempting to accost Gaetz (who has since “forgiven” Rogers) before noting that the right would have “lost their mind” if “that had been any of us.”
Co-host Sunny Hostin, meanwhile, took aim at conservatives’ habit of railing about the “thuggish” behavior of left-wing activists and protesters.
“You know, it was so uncivilized when he’s, like, lunging at him and grabbing at him,” she declared. “The Republicans like to use identity politics and they like to talk about thugs a lot, and they like to talk about other people. I saw a lot of thuggishness going on. I saw thugs at work.”
Hostin continued: “I saw this uncivilized nature, and it’s like they were raised by wolves many of them, and so I wonder if you are doing that in the chamber on the House floor, how do you expect to govern and lead by example? That’s something I wouldn’t want to see my kids do, and they were doing it.”
Ana Navarro, a prominent anti-Trump GOP strategist and commentator, followed up by comparing the House Republican caucus to out-of-control reality TV stars.
“I thought I was watching a Real Housewives reunion,” the View co-host snarked to laughter.
“You know how they do that. They tear wigs and pull hair and flip over tables. I was like, man, where’s Andy Cohen when you need him?” Navarro quipped, referencing the Bravo host and executive producer of the reality TV series.
The rest of the panel discussed the likelihood that McCarthy will get booted from his speakership before the next midterm elections, with resident conservative co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin predicting he’ll have the shortest term in history.
“It’s like a Scaramucci,” Hostin joked, referencing Anthony Scaramucci’s infamous 11-day reign as White House communications director.
