“We say, ‘Joy Behar at 81 is not Joe Biden at 81,’ and that was on full display last night,” said Sara Haines — who said she’d still vote for him if it comes down to Biden vs. Trump.
The View panel was left divided after watching President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump take the stage for their first debate ahead of this year’s election.
After the debate sent shock waves through the political world, the women at the desk on Friday discussed the main concerns they had — citing Biden’s age and inability to express his differences from Trump with clarity, and Trump’s ability to fire off lies like a “machine gun.”
Sara Haines began the discussion with her opinion, admitting that the debate was “really hard to watch” and it caused her to question Biden’s position in the top spot.
REACTION TO FIRST PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: @JoyVBehar, @sarahaines, @ananavarro, @Sunny and @Alyssafarah weigh in on how Pres. Biden and former Pres. Trump performed. pic.twitter.com/UgBL9kL1P0
— The View (@TheView) June 28, 2024
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“I think President Biden needs to step down and be replaced if we want to defeat Trump in November,” Haines began, before adding that she believed the early debate request from the Democratic party was intentional. “I absolutely think that and I think Biden’s team saw it coming, I think that’s why they pushed for an earlier debate so they had time to change course if needed but they’ve got to act fast.”
“People are concerned with his age,” she continued, before comparing Biden to cohost Joy Behar. “Even at this table we’ve said, ‘Look joy’s 81…'”
“Must we keep repeating it,” Behar interrupted, bringing light to a heavy conversation.
“We say, ‘Joy Behar at 81 is not Joe Biden at 81,’ and that was on full display last night,” Haines continued — before adding that despite her view of Biden’s performance during the debate, “If November comes and President Biden and President Trump are on the ticket, I will 100% be voting for President Biden.”
“Because the alternative is too scary for me,” she added.
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Alyssa Farah Griffin echoed Haines’ statement and agreed that her main concern is Biden’s age, labeling his performance as “stunningly worse than” she expected while insisting Trump’s camp would be scared if the Democrats changed their nominee.
“So I was genuinely in shock last night watching this even though I’ve had concerns for a couple of years about Biden’s age, it was stunningly worse than I expected, the performance,” she began. “I want to be clear Donald Trump was a mess he lied his way through it. But Joe Biden’s performance was so bad that it eclipsed everything that Donald Trump said.
Griffin previously worked for Trump’s communications team before resigning in 2020.
“Donald Trump is a threat to American democracy,” she continued. “We need someone who can beat him [Trump] so I’ve been saying for a long time, ‘Put country before party and support Joe Biden’, he needs to put country before his own ambition and he needs to step aside and pass the baton because I’m telling you right now Trump’s camp world is scared when they’re hearing rumblings that there could be someone else on the ticket.”
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Sunny Hostin looked at the reactions in a different way and expressed how “ironic” she thought it was that only Democrats were discussing the idea of replacing its candidate.
“I think what we saw was that Biden lost the debate … blame it on a cold, blame it on his stuttering, blame it on over preparation, whatever, but he did lose. Maybe he needs to go, maybe he needs to be honest with himself and the American people,” Hostin said. “But what I will say is this, I think it’s really ironic that we’re the only party talking about needing to replace our nominee. I think it’s really ironic that the party that should be pressuring their candidate to step aside is the Republican Party.”
“Their nominee is a convicted felon, he’s facing 100s of charges for criminal activity and has been proven to be a racist, a business fraud liable for sexual abuse an insurrectionist and as Biden said he has the morals of an ‘alley cat’. Republicans need to be holding him accountable,” she concluded.
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Ana Navarro on the other hand, remains confident in President Joe Biden, a man she has known “for over 20 years.” However, she did clarify that the Joe Biden she saw during the debate was “worrisome.”
“But to me until Joe Biden tells me his giving up, I’m not giving up on Joe Biden and so to me the binary choice remains the same. He looked elderly yesterday, he sounded elderly, he is elderly, but the choice is no different — it is a very old man vs. a very bad man,” Navarro said.
“It is a man who speaks in a weak voice but tells me the truth in a wake elderly voice and a man who lies with impunity,” she continued. “[Trump] is a machine gun of lies, so I’m not going judge Joe Biden on 90 bad minutes, I am going to judge Joe Biden on his lifetime career of putting this country first, of putting you first of putting women’s rights first.”
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Behar wrapped up the segment insisting to the audience that, “It’s an emergency situation we’re in right now.”
“We’re talking about the demise of democracy which is what Joe Biden should have said in his wrap up speech at the end. What is on the line – nothing less than the democracy we’ve enjoyed for all these years, nothing less than women’s rights to tell you what their bodies should do, not some politician that thinks a fallopian tube is the way to get to New Jersey,” Behar said.
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
