Joy Behar wondered “what exactly did [Trump] accomplish” by picking Vance, while Alyssa Farah Griffin explained why she believes the former president took a “gamble” by choosing the far-right senator as his VP.
The women of The View are sharing their thoughts after President Donald Trump announced that J.D. Vance will be his vice president in the 2024 presidential election.
On Tuesday’s episode of the daytime talk show, Joy Behar, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, and Whoopi Goldberg discussed Trump’s decision to choose the Ohio senator as his running mate, with the cohosts sharing how they believe his controversial pick will impact the election — if at all.
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Goldberg kicked off the segment by showing a clip of Vance talking with Fox News following his appearance at the Republican National Convention, in which the journalist brought up some of Vance’s past critical comments of Trump, including calling him “America’s Hitler.”
After the clip ended, The View’s live audience loudly booed in response, before Goldberg put her hand up to stop them.
Behar immediately jumped in with her thoughts. “I think this is a very good choice … for the Democrats. This is good news for the Democrats, in my opinion,” she said, before asking Griffin, who previously worked for Trump’s communications team, if she agreed with her.
“I do,” Griffin replied, before Behar then continued. “He’s a carbon copy of Trump, so what new voters is he going to bring in? Not the suburban mom, not the girl who needs an abortion, not the gay people who want to retain their rights, not people who support Ukraine. So what exactly did he accomplish?”
Behar then brought up some of Vance’s controversial views, including opposing abortion without exceptions for rape or incest, and his past comments in which he appeared to suggest women should stay in violent and abusive marriages.
“I work a lot for The Retreat, which is an organization that protects women from abusive husbands,” she said. “They go to this place in their pajamas, they run with their children in their pajamas, and so to stay in a marriage like that not only puts the woman at risk, but the children at risk.”
“He is completely distorted in his views, and so is Trump. So the two of them have that in common,” she added. “What’s the point?”
Griffin said she believes Trump took a “gamble” by selecting Vance, describing Trump choosing the Hillbilly Elegy author as “risky.”
“This was a gamble by Donald Trump to pick him. It was a name that had been out there — his son, Don Jr, and Eric Trump had really been pushing for him, as had Elon Musk and some of these Silicon Valley tech billionaire bro types… He’s got some talents. This is somebody who’s incredibly savvy. Is a Yale Law grad. He’s a former Marine. But for every normal interview he’s given in mainstream media, there are extremely polarizing clips of him in some of the farthest right corners of the internet espousing things that are outside of the political mainstream.”
“Democrats are going to have a field day picking apart some of the things he said. But why did he pick him?” she continued. “Yesterday, Elon Musk gets reported committed to giving $45 million a month to a Trump-aligned Super PAC [if] J.D. Vance has been announced by the VP. We are seeing a total realignment of Republican politics.”
“Listen, I’m grateful Donald Trump is safe,” Griffin added. “I think it was a powerful moment to see he survived this assassination attempt. But the policies that were espoused, Reaganism is dead. This is a very different party. You had the Teamsters on stage. You had J.D. Vance, your people talking about Ukraine shouldn’t be supported. It’s a really odd moment in our politics.”
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The conservative commentator said she’s not even sure where she “fit[s] in” in the Republic party anymore.
“This certainly doesn’t bring in the Nikki Haley national security Republicans,” Griffin concluded. “But I also think Donald Trump picked him, not just because of the money, because he’s so confident he’s winning, he could afford to take somebody who’s a little bit risky.”
Hostin then shared why she believes Trump chose Vance.
“I think he picked him because he knows that he’s the vice president that will do the things that Mike Pence would not. I really do believe that,” she explained. “He is an election denier.”
After reciting some of Vance’s previous comments regarding him denying the 2020 election results, Hostin said, “I think another reason why he picked him is because of Project 2025. I know we don’t have enough time to go over it, but some of the huge things of that platform is end marriage equality, limit the United States’ role in NATO, dismantle the Department of Education, raise prescription drug prices for seniors, and end the Affordable Care Act. That’s Project 2025. Project 2025 has praised J.D. Vance … the president of the Heritage Foundation said this: ‘J.D. Vance is absolutely going to be one of the leaders, if not the leader, of our movement.'”
As for Haines, she said, “I don’t think J.D. Vance moved the needle on any voters at all, but I think it was a loud message to the Republican Party. It was a doubling down of the MAGA agenda. There was a lot of talk that he could have pulled in a Marco Rubio, even a Nikki Haley up to the last minute, to expand his voter base. He didn’t feel he needed to, which should also tell us something. I think he picked someone that is kind of fodder for the Dems, but there’s a reason he’s feeling that right now, and he went with a guy that’s not going to add anything. He’s further right in a lot of policy than Donald Trump is.”
Golberg concluded the segment by reminding viewers and audience members that who they vote for is ultimately their own decision. “No network, no group of women or group of men, can tell you what to do. This is in our hands as Americans,” she said.
