‘It’s Not Fringe!’ Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines Battle Over Trump Supporter Who’d Rather Have Putin as President Over Biden
The View co-host Sunny Hostin argued with co-host Sara Haines over a supporter of former President Donald Trump who said she would rather have Vladimir Putin as president of the United States, instead of Joe Biden.
On Wednesday’s edition of ABC’s The View, the hosts opened the show by discussing Seanfest 2022, which is what nobody is calling Tuesday night’s extended sitdown between Fox News host Sean Hannity and actor/activist Sean Penn.
While the other hosts seemed to agree it was a hopeful moment of cultural bridge-building, Ms. Hostin was not on board with the “Kumbaya feelings” that swept the stage.
Hostin told her colleagues that Fox viewers “have been indoctrinated for years and years and years. And I’m not sure that Sean Penn appearing on the air and talking about the atrocities that he saw in the Ukraine in his documentary, is going to move the needle.”
She cited the denialism around the Jan. 6 insurrection, as well as polling showing “Republicans view Putin more favorably than they do leading Democrats. A third of Republicans say that they think Putin was Putin was doing a better job leading his country than Biden is. Republicans were 10 times as likely to describe Putin as strong as they were Biden.”
Hostin then played a clip from pranksters/interviewers The Good Liars in which a woman in Trump gear is asked “Who would you rather have President Joe Biden or Vladimir Putin?”
“Oh, Putin. Definitely,” the woman replies.
Ms. Hostin then argued the clip illustrates the effects of the Putin-friendly rhetoric of Tucker Carlson and took exception when Haines argued such views are “fringe”:
MS. HOSTIN: Matter of fact, “Putin.” And then she goes on to say that, she goes on to say he’s been given a tough, I mean, since World War Two, Russia’s been the bad guy when in actual reality, the Nazis left Germany and they ended up going to Ukraine. And that is Russian propaganda that we hear all the time on Tucker Carlson’s show, and other shows.
MS. HAINES: We know how TV is made. They did a bunch of man on the street moments, and then they took the one that’s like, Oh my gosh, did she just say that I’m not…
MS. HOSTIN: But oh my gosh, she did say that.
MS. HAINES: But what I’m saying is that you’re taking the fringe players, and I don’t know how far the fringe goes. I don’t know the math on this, but I refuse to give up on everyone…
MS. HOSTIN: It’s not fringe, though, Sara. Tucker Carlson says that the U.S. helped encourage the Russian invasion. Tucker Carlson. And by the way, he’s the highest-rated cable news host in the country, not just on Fox.
MS. BEHAR: And in Russia.
MS. HOSTIN: And in Russia, because they play his clips all the time. Tucker Carlson said that the U.S. engineered a coup in Ukraine in the name of democracy. He says that the Democrats stand to benefit financially from war in the Ukraine, and he is watched every single night by millions of people.
Watch above via ABC.
