Last night at the Alfred E. Smith Catholic charity dinner in New York, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump rattled off a roster of grievances and talking points in the guise of jokes that even he didn’t think were particularly funny (he seemed to admit as much on Fox & Friends today), and one of his targets was ABC’s The View.
“That stupid show The View is so bad now the other day I was watching it and thinking you know what? They really need to bring Rosie O’Donnell back,” Trump said last night. “That show is bad. Those people are bad. I know every one of them and they are bad news I want to tell you. And it doesn’t do very well either. Ratings are very important and it doesn’t do very well.”
Naturally, The View aired the not-very-funny clip during today’s Hot Topics segment, with cohost Joy Behar immediately doing an imitation of a slurring, low-energy Trump before the other panelists had their say.
They started with Trump’s assertion that he knows “every one of them.” (Whoopi Goldberg had her usual Friday off today).
“I’ve lived 52 years,” said Ana Navarro, fervently and mock-angrily disputing any connection to the former president. “I’ve lived 44 years in this country. I have never shaken that man’s hand. I have never watched his show. I have never bought any of his crummy products and I have never voted for him.”
Said Sunny Hostin: “The interesting thing is I have seen him and he has seen me because I covered his trial.”
Next was Alyssa Farah Griffin, who before her daytime TV career was the White House director of strategic communications during the Trump presidency. “Apparently he came after me on a podcast recently saying he didn’t known me and he never met me despite that I worked for him,” she said. “Now he says he knows me, which gets to my point: I think he’s slowing down.”
“He’s losing it,” agreed Hostin, then smiled and said, “It’s such an enjoyable thing to live rent-free in his head. I enjoy it, I enjoy that he has admitted now at least three or four times that he watches this show. Thank you Donald! Hi!”
And for the record, Griffin noted, “I’d just like him to know we are No. 1 in daytime over the last four years so the ratings are fine.”
Earlier this morning, Trump appeared for a friendly chat on Fox & Friends, with the topics of conversation including the Smith dinner. “Your material was real funny,” said the show’s Steve Doocy. “Who wrote it? Who helped you with it?”
“I had a lot of people help me,” Trump replied, “a couple of people from Fox. Actually I shouldn’t say that but they wrote some jokes. And for the most part I didn’t like any of them.”
