Alyssa Farah: 'The View' Aims to 'Elevate the Discourse' in New Season

September 5th, 2022 9:09 PM

On the eve of yet another vapid and hate-fueled season of ABC’s The View, the Labor Day Monday edition of ABC’s Good Morning America teamed up with new permanent “conservative” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin to promote the 26th season. In the course of the interview, Farah Griffin made the laughable claim that she and her fellow co-hosts aim to “elevate the discourse” of the country and chided politicians for not being able to talk like they do.

Seemingly hinting at Fox News, GMA co-host Janai Norman said Farah Griffin could have gone to “a place where others have views just like yourself, but you wanted to have that discussion with people with opposing views.” She also noted that “sometimes things get heated, especially during Hot Topics” on the show

“Listen, by the way, I survived the Trump West Wing. I think I can survive The View,” Farah Griffin pompously declared, despite how she often cowered to push back from the rest of the liberal cast when she was a guest host.

She proceeded to opine about how “there is a genuine camaraderie among the hosts” and how they “want to elevate the discourse” and be an example for politicians. “[O]ur elected leaders oftentimes can't have the conversations we all have around our dinner tables or with our girlfriends or guy friends. And we want to do that,” she said.

Adding: “That we're going to tackle serious issues, we're going do it in a fun way.”

 

 

Fun how? What’s fun about The View? Whoopi Goldberg insisting the Holocaust wasn’t about race, was that “fun?” Sunny Hostin calling black and Latino conservatives “oxymorons,” was that fun or elevating? Is Joy Behar denying fentanyl is coming across the border fun? What’s elevating about Sara Haines smearing pro-lifers as anti-mothers and the poor?

“The fun thing about the show is there is a genuine camaraderie among the hosts,” she said.

Oh, fun like that! Funny though, The Daily Mail had inside sources that said members of the cast weren’t happy that Farah Griffin was hired. Some of that animosity behind the scenes even spilled over to on-air.

“[A]s a Republican, the table skews to the left. Umm. I'm not going in trying to change everyone's mind. Merely to show the other viewpoint, show how, you know, nearly half the country sees some of these issues,” Farah Griffin continued.

Still speaking as a “Republican,” she explained that she was looking forward to lecturing Republicans about her master plan for the future of the party from her perch in a New York City studio:

I'm a millennial and I worked in the Trump administration, I’ve also since criticized the former President, but I still want to be a voice for the 74 million Americans who voted for him. And kind of tell them, you know, from my experience, here is why I won't support him again, but here's what a future Republican Party can and should look like. So, that's really what I'm hoping to kind of meet the audience with.

Further beclowning herself, Farah Griffin admitted: “I sometimes am scared of Joy” and suggested other conservatives were too.

But what’s to be scared of? Behar is just very ignorant and very loud.

Farah Griffin’s misnomers about The View were made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Ford Motor Company and Hyundai. Their contact information is linked.

The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:

ABC’s Good Morning America
September 5, 2022
8:30:25 a.m. Eastern

GIO BENITEZ: And we are here now on this Labor Day with a former White House communications director for the Trump administration, and press secretary for former Vice President Pence, she was also the youngest Pentagon press secretary in history, and now Alyssa Farah Griffin is joining The View as one of the show's newly announced co-hosts. Good morning. Thank you for being here.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN:  Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

BENITEZ: So, I’ve got to tell you, this is, like, appointment viewing for us at home because we watch every single day, all right.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Well, you guys tee it up very well. Listen, we just hold on to your audience.

[Laughter]

BENITEZ: I love that. Season 26 starts tomorrow.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Yeah.

BENITEZ: You're excited?

FARAH GRIFFIN: I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled. So, I'm filling the Republican seat that Ana Navarro was also on with me, so we'll have two of us at the table this season, which is exciting. Umm. We’ve got incredible guests lined up. First week alone we have Hillary Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, promoting one of their new Netflix programs. I’ve met with Chelsea before. She's fabulous. As a Republican, getting to grill Hillary Clinton is going to be very exciting.

Umm. But then we also have awesome – we’ve got Regina Hall, we’ve got Reese Witherspoon later in the season. So, it’s going to be must watch TV.

EVA PILGRIM: You mentioned Ana Navarro who’s also a Republican. But you say it is important to have different Republican viewpoints.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Yes. I think we can be a little reductive in how we look at politics. It’s, know now, red and blue, Republican and Democrat. But there’s a whole host of nuance in between in both the parties. So, I think Ana speaks for kind of a different generation, she’d serve different administrations than I had.

I'm a millennial and I worked in the Trump administration, I’ve also since criticized the former President, but I still want to be a voice for the 74 million Americans who voted for him. And kind of tell them, you know, from my experience, here is why I won't support him again, but here's what a future Republican Party can and should look like. So, that's really what I'm hoping to kind of meet the audience with.

JANAI NORMAN: And it is so interesting because I know you said before that you could have gone to, you know, a place where others have views just like yourself, but you wanted to have that discussion with people with opposing views. And sometimes things get heated, especially during Hot Topics. But you say you -- it doesn't last long.

FARAH GRIFFIN: It doesn't. That's the thing. And listen, by the way, I survived the Trump West Wing. I think I can survive The View.

[Laughter]

We'll see. I'll be back to let you know.

But, no. The fun thing about the show is there is a genuine camaraderie among the hosts. And I've gotten to guest host more than two dozen times now. So, I’ve really gotten to know the women. You'll watch, viewers at home tune in like – we will have a heated Hot Topic segment, but as soon as we start panning out for commercial, Joy’s cracking a joke, Sunny’s showing me pictures of her dogs. There’s a friendship.

[Laughter]

BENITEZ: And chickens.

FARAH GRIFFIN: And chickens.

[Laughter]

FARAH GRIFFIN: We're all women that just kind of want to -- I think we want to elevate the discourse. That's my goal going in; is, our elected leaders oftentimes can't have the conversations we all have around our dinner tables or with our girlfriends or guy friends. And we want to do that. That we're going to tackle serious issues, we're going do it in a fun way. We can, you know, argue without being combative.

And I'm also going in, look, as a Republican, the table skews to the left. Umm. I'm not going in trying to change everyone's mind. Merely to show the other viewpoint, show how, you know, nearly half the country sees some of these issues.

NORMAN: That discourse is what we need more of.

BENITEZ: Yeah. And to do it the way you do it on the show.

Listen, I know you can't reveal all the celebrities and guests you have coming on the show, but who are you most excited about? Is there someone you really want to interview?

FARAH GRIFFIN: Well, okay, so this week I can preview we have Charlie Crist, running for governor in Florida against DeSantis. I'm excited about that one cause there’s a few things I would like to challenge him on. But what’s been just iconic about the show for all 20 – the previous 25 seasons is it is a place that politicians come to make their case to the public.

So whether running nationally, presidential candidates, or statewide. So I bet you're going to see a lot of potential 2024 contenders on the right and the left swing by The View table and make their case to the public. And I can't wait to talk to them.

PILGRIM: I'm curious if you have gotten any advice from your co-hosts or former hosts of the show.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Yes. Umm. So Whoopi is so big on define yourself, own your authenticity and just be you. And she's a champion of all the women at the table. She understands, like, we all come from different backgrounds, but there is one thing that I think we all have in common is we came up in male-dominated fields. Me, politics, you know, Whoopi in entertainment, Joy in comedy, Sunny in law, media for Sara. And it’s cool that that one thing we have together. So she promotes this idea of a sisterhood among us, even though we're so different in so many ways. So, I love that.

And I will say, Sara Haines has been a huge support system to me and a positive person.

And finally I'll say this with Joy, everyone expects Joy to be the person that conservatives are the most scared of. And I’ll be honest, I sometimes am scared of Joy, but as soon as we go to commercial, she just has fire. Like she has the funniest thing to take the temperature down. And we need that. I think it is just a fun panel to be on.

BENITEZ: Such a great team. Thank you so much for being here, Alyssa.

FARAH GRIFFIN: Of course! Thank you for having me.