View Host Says Trump Fans Are ‘Good Decent People’ Who Deserve Respect

The View host Alyssa Farah Griffin said President Donald Trump’s supporters aren’t “all bad” and that they’re “good, decent people” who deserve to be respected and listened to.

Griffin — a Never-Trumper who has moved in the direction of more balanced commentary on the president since his victory — explained her shift on this week’s edition of The View‘s Behind The Table Podcast:

EXEC PRODUCER BRIAN TETA: Alyssa, since working in the Trump administration and resigning in December of 2020, you’ve been an outspoken critic of his. You were very clear with your concerns about a second Trump term, and I think most of the things you predicted have kind of happened.

But he’s now four months into his second term. How has your approach to covering this administration changed?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: It’s a good question. So the election went the way I thought it would.

I think toward the end, there was like a week that I was like, maybe Kamala Harris is gonna win, but my gut had told me honestly, since about June of 2024, Donald Trump was gonna win. It was just kind of a matter of when at that point.

And when the election didn’t go the way that I wanted to, I took some time of self-reflecting on. I talked about the issues that mattered to me. I talked sort of the fundamentals, democracy, the rule of law, but I also talked about very specific policy issues. Tariffs were something I was very concerned about, the impacts that could have on small businesses, something that we’re seeing deal with now.

But when the public didn’t go the way that I wanted to, I took some time, put on my journalistic hat, and was like, I’m gonna go talk to the Trump supporters in my life, the people I know who voted for him, who I love, who I respect, who have jobs, who are contributing to society, to get an idea of what drove them to be with him so that I could represent why people were with him and give that perspective, while I myself wasn’t personally with him.

And something that I get frustrated with is when I hear the rantings on cable news of, how could you be with them after, you know, grab them this, January 6th, 34 felony counts.

Well, the answer is. Time to go do homework if we really consider ourselves journalists and ask people. We don’t need to guess, we don’t to speculate, you can talk to people.

Now it does not mean I’m going to agree with their reason for it, but I want to be able to provide people those answers of what made people, in spite of all those things, be motivated to turn out for him. So I want bring that to the table.

Because there are good, decent people, 75 million people voted for him, those are not all bad people, they’re our neighbors, and I–.

And then also, if you want to influence change, if you wanna be able to talk to them and get them to where we are on some of these issues, you have to show a certain level of just respect and willingness to listen.

SARAH HAINES: Absolutely.

EXEC PRODUCER BRIAN TETA: All right. I hear from a lot of fans that are like, well,.

SUNNY HOSTIN: But I don’t agree with any of that.

EXEC PRODUCER BRIAN TETA: Yeah, we know Sunny. But we hear from allot of fans are like well, Alyssa’s flipped, and she feels differently. Every conversation I’ve had with you since you started working here, you’ve been incredibly consistent.

SUNNY HOSTIN: She’s consistent.

Watch above via The View‘s Behind The Table Podcast.