“The View” co-host Joy Behar and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York got into a war of words Friday over what Behar called the senator’s part in “pushing out” fellow Democratic senator, Al Franken.
Behar admitted at the outset that she had a “bone to pick” with Gillibrand for what she said was unfair treatment of Franken, who stepped down as a U.S. Senator from Minnesota on Jan. 2 after serving since July 2009.
“I know that you led the charge to get Al Franken to resign from the Senate,” Behar began. “I just thought that was unfair to make him an example when the President of United States, has so many allegations of sexual harassment against him and I don’t see him going anywhere.”
But Gillibrand said she did not regret leading the charge to coerce Franken to resign from the Senate and that she did not accept any allegation that she was creating a false equivalency to more serious cases of sexual misconduct.
“I have a 14-year-old son. I have a 9-year-old son. How am I suppose to tell him it’s OK to grab a woman here. It’s OK to grab a woman here. But not OK to grab a woman here? Absolutely not. I am not going to have that conversation. That is the wrong conversation to be having,” Gillibrand said.
“It’s not OK to grab women without their consent,” Gillibrand continued. “It’s not OK. So why would you want to hold our elected leaders to the lowest standard and not the highest standard?”
As more and more men find themselves in the crosshairs of #MeToo, a growing number of prominent women on television have begun to publicly question whether the movement has gone too far. In addition to Behar, “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinksi has moderated several segments critical of the movement including one this morning which blasted partisans for not willing to engage in an “honest” conversation.
Watch their full exchange in the video above.