The women of “The View” tackled a pressing issue of the week along with a decade-long argument on Thursday’s episode: the deadly Amtrak train crash in Philadelphia and America’s decision to go to war in Iraq.
With Whoopi Goldberg absent from the show, Nicolle Wallace, Rosie Perez and Raven-Symone were joined by “View” veteran Joy Behar and model/actress Molly Sims.
Given the diverse ideologies on Thursday’s panel, the conversation grew heated at times. The discussion about the train derailment in Philadelphia quickly turned to Republican efforts to cut funding for Amtrak by about a fifth.
“I ride Amtrak; I wish they’d pour money into it so that every train is safe,” GOP supporter Wallace declared, adding that the argument over funding stems from questions of Amtrak’s efficiency.
Nonetheless,Wallace lobbed a pretty serious accusation against the Democrats, saying they “were using a tragedy to try to push through a bill.”
“Infrastructure-wise, we’re becoming a Third World country,” Behar chimed in.
Meanwhile, Raven-Symone wondered, “Why is it still a human behind the wheel of a machine that big?”
Behar also managed to get a two-for one dig in at a pair of high-profile Republicans, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Texas senator/presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Noting that she had recently been in Iowa, a favorite stomping ground for presidential candidates, Behar joked, “I was looking for Ted Cruz there, because that’s where they all hang out … but then I looked under a rock and there he was.”
Behar added, “He was hiding under Chris Christie” before noting that a day without a Christie fat joke is “like a day without sunshine.”
“Mark my words when [Christie is] inaugurated as president, you’ll be the one crying and I’ll get to laugh,” Wallace shot back.
Talk then turned to Jeb Bush, who’s exploring a run for president in the 2016 election and who’s famously related to presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. The panel discussed a recent video, during which Bush was grilled about the Iraq war.
Behar expressed some sympathy for the former Florida governor, largely because he’s caught between what we currently know about the war in Iraq and his “loyalty to his, how shall we put this, intellectually challenged brother.”
“No American believes in that war,” Behar opined. ” Why are they pretending that it was OK to have that war?”
Raven-Symone put forth that, sometimes, wars are not engaged in with the most noble of intentions. “I feel like it’s not to benefit us all the time,” she suggested. “It’s to raise our bank accounts in the government.”
“The notion that Jeb Bush somehow has to answer for everything his brother did is not something that the voters are going to accept,” Wallace asserted.
During the episode, the “View” crew also discussed Blythe Danner‘s recent defense of her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow, who’s sometimes been accused of being out of touch with the general population. The general consensus? People should get off of poor Gwynnie’s back.
“As a society we judge women so harshly and brutally,” Sims lamented.
Noting that Paltrow’s often impractical-for-others advice and lifestyle “works for her,” Raven-Symone added, “Everyone should have their own way of thinking.”