Alyssa Farah Griffin was met with a hard silence on Monday’s episode of “The View” after she expressed her opinion that good people should work for and interview Donald Trump in his second term.
The moment came during the first “Hot Topic” of the day, in which the women discussed their thoughts on “Morning Joe” hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough revealing that they met with Trump for 90 minutes, and plan to “restart communications” with him.
For Farah Griffin, as well as fellow co-host Sara Haines, the decision to meet was the right one — with the former noting she’d probably do the same.
“I would sit down with Donald Trump. I would interview Donald Trump. And I’ll go a step further, I hope good people work for him,” Farah Griffin said. “We need to stop demonizing people because they supported a man who just became president of the United States. We should hope good people are around him, and smart journalists are challenging him.”
As she finished, though, she was met with total silence from the crowd, while Ana Navarro immediately jumped into respond with a pointed, “Well…” That particular delivery earned a laugh from the crowd.
“I absolutely think it was the right decision,” Haines then said. “And I think it’s good that they work on MSNBC. I don’t want only Fox people going to see them.”
“I don’t need to know their motivation, I just know you get nowhere in silence,” she added.
Sunny Hostin disagreed, however, saying that a sit-down meeting wasn’t required to cover Trump fairly and honestly.
“The bottom line is that America needs a free press that is willing to speak truth to power right now more than ever,” she said. “I think we have to be very clear on it when we think about the president-elect and cover the president-elect, and I don’t think you need to sit down for 90 minutes at Mar-a-Lago and kiss his ring to be able to speak truth and be able to cover a story.”
“The View” airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
