There’s One Clear Choice to Replace Meghan McCain on The View
It looks like The View won’t be taking my advice and hiring former Republican Congresswoman Mia Love to succeed Meghan McCain as the conservative host on the ABC talk show.
The New York Post reported this month that former Trump official Alyssa Farah Griffin and Lincoln Project senior adviser Tara Setmayer are the finalists “being considered for the permanent seat.” An insider told the Post, “I would expect an announcement before the season ends on August 5.”
The choice is clear: Griffin should be named as McCain’s replacement.
For one, Griffin is a true conservative and shrewd political analyst who is unafraid to call balls and strikes on issues across the political and ideological spectrum. Griffin is able to hold both sides of the political aisle to account because, unlike most in the media, she isn’t blinded by partisanship.
Since the Jan. 6 attack, she has been outspoken against her former boss, former President Donald Trump. She has faced criticism for such an abrupt change in her views of Trump, having gone from defending him when she was in the administration to bashing him on air at The View and CNN.
But it is not outlandish, nor is it inexcusable, that Griffin’s views of the president changed after Jan. 6. That day tarnished Trump in the eyes of many conservatives who for years put up with his dreadful personal conduct because of his policy achievements.
Griffin demonstrated on Friday that she is just as comfortable challenging the unshakable liberalism of The View as she is holding her own side to account.
On the topic of abortion, she condemned a pro-life activist who made confounding comments in a Congressional hearing about a 10-year-old Ohio girl who sought an abortion after being raped, while deftly outlining the pro-life position:
I’m personally pro-life, but the woman in this clip is the worst spokesperson for our beliefs and our movement. It has been Republican Party orthodoxy that we believe in exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. And now we’re seeing that flipped on its head. People are going back against this. I don’t know how anyone … to me it’s unconscionable to think a 10-year-old rape victim should have to carry the baby to term and not have that decision.
So that to me is stunning and what I worry about in this important moment in our country is we decide how we move forward after this Roe decision. I worry that the extremes of both sides are governing the debate.
The vast majority of the country supports some of limitations on abortion. Fifteen weeks models most of where Europe is, most European countries. That’s a compromise that I think tens of millions of Americans could get behind. But the bill Democrats introduced to codify Roe into law supported it up until viability for a baby. So for someone like me that’s equally distressing. I think people of good faith on both sides need to able to come together and say, what is the middle ground we can reach on this?
Griffin also boasts a quality that has become increasingly rare on cable news: a calm temperament. On Wednesday’s episode of The View, Griffin showed how she can rise above the deafening culture war clashes that have become commonplace on cable:
Women get attacked differently. I get death threats for speaking out, but I get — I get sexually violent threats as well for speaking out. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Right comes after her. She gets horrifying messages from people. We as women have a duty regardless of political affiliation to say knock that off. Because we get it way worse when we use our voices. And I’ll hold myself accountable. I want to take down the temperature in how we talk about politics, how we talk about policy in this country because we can’t do this. Like, this country could fail.
The View requires a dash of drama from its co-hosts, however, and Griffin has shown that she can punch back — gracefully — as she did in a May episode that hosted a former colleague of hers, Kellyanne Conway.
During one segment, Conway, a former senior adviser to Trump, took a shot at Griffin, remarking she had not seen her “since you changed.”
Griffin interrupted and said, “Just to be clear, I didn’t change. I swore an oath to the Constitution…”
“I don’t want to argue,” interjected Conway. “You get to talk here every day.”
“I swore an oath to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump,” said Griffin.
Trump fans obviously don’t like Griffin due to her criticism of The Donald. They need to be realistic: The View is seeking a conservative who goes after Democrats, but the show will not hire a Trump sycophant like Conway, Jenna Ellis, Liz Wheeler, Tomi Lahren or Mercedes Schlapp.
Still, Griffin has faced criticism from conservatives outside the MAGA tent. Over at National Review, Nate Hochman published a Thursday piece criticizing her about-face on Trump. He made some fair points, notably Griffin’s apparent flip-flop on whether the country should move on from Jan. 6.
What’s more, Griffin defending Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, only to blast Georgia’s David Perdue for propagating the Big Lie during his gubernatorial campaign, was hypocritical. And in November 2020, Griffin baselessly accused Pennsylvania election officials “putting their thumb on the scale” to assist Democrats.
But his portrayal of Griffin as an extensive hypocrite is overstated. For example, Griffin lamenting that a Democratic-controlled Congress wouldn’t allow for a Hunter Biden investigation, and acknowledging that it is not a top issue for voters, are not conflicting ideas. Congress deals with matters all the time that should be legislated, such as improving healthcare for veterans, even if polls show those matters are not a top issue for most Americans.
In the months since she left the administration, Griffin has proven to be an honest and principled conservative on the subject of Trump and beyond.
She made that very case herself, compellingly, on Wednesday’s episode of The View.
“There are people who think that people like me, people like Stephanie Grisham, people like Olivia Troye don’t deserve to have a voice because we worked for Donald Trump. I reject that,” she said. “We are telling the truth now. We are telling it authentically. We are acknowledging what we did wrong, and I am grateful to those women and I stand with them … We all make mistakes, but I am glad those women are using their voices.”
What better platform for Griffin to use her voice full-time than on The View? ABC should name Griffin as McCain’s successor without delay.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
