The View star and former Donald Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin revealed she’s shocked over recent “anti-women” comments made by Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as the 35-year-old said she believes the political figure to be a kind soul at heart.
Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty; ABC
Whoopi Goldberg kicked off Wednesday’s live show by introducing a clip of Sanders speaking at a recent event where the Governor of Arkansas spoke about how her children keep her ego in check, later adding: “Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.”
Many — including The View panelists — interpreted Sanders’ comment as a dig at Harris having no biological children, following Trump’s running mate J.D. Vance‘s controversial 2021 statement about “childless cat ladies” running the Democratic party.
“I watched this clip and my jaw dropped. I worked with Sarah, the table is going to gasp when I say this, she was, privately, one of the kindest, sweetest people,” Griffin said, referencing her time working under both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, before resigning from Trump’s team and subsequently speaking out against him. “But, it speaks to the toxic environment of Trump. That, to fit in in that world, you have to go out, you have to say wild things, you have to knock people down, you have to be a bully, because that’s not who she privately is.”
Griffin said that, as she and husband Justin Griffin consider starting a family, she was reminded of friends and family struggling with issues like infertility or, simply deciding that having children is not the path they’d like to go down as a couple.
“That we demonize and shame people on the most personal, private decision is so anti-family, it’s anti-women,” Griffin continued. “And, by the way, men are offended by this, too. My husband was texting me, like, ‘Can you believe she said this?’ It is the easiest way to lose people’s support.”
Legal expert Sunny Hostin added that she thinks “there are a lot of ways of mothering” beyond biological maternity.
“The Vice President is a stepmother, and her stepchildren call her Momala. She is a mother, she is a mother figure. Let’s call this another thing, which is what I saw, this lack of humility trope. Kamala is a self-made person, she’s a child of immigrants,” Hostin continued. “When you’re not born on third base into a political family is a pretty humbling experience, and the trope that a Black woman lacks humility because she’s well-educated and accomplished and confident and competent is a tired trope, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, that says a lot more about you than it says anything about [Harris].”
Goldberg ended the Hot Topics discussion by criticizing the mentality before sending the show to a commercial break.
“I want you to talk about the stuff that matters to people,” Goldberg said, bringing up Sanders’ past annoyance with people saying mean things about her — particularly when comedian Michelle Wolf criticized her looks at the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner. “If you care about families, make sure that when you actually get an idea of what you need to be doing for the people of this country, you’ll include children in that, you’ll make sure that children get what they need.”
Entertainment Weekly has reached out to Sanders’ team for comment.
The panelists’ words come after Vance received heavy pushback over his 2021 “childless cat ladies” quip, which drew condemnation across political divides, from Jennifer Aniston, Oprah Winfrey, Meghan McCain, and Taylor Swift, who referenced the dig in her endorsement of Harris following the second presidential debate.
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/PT on ABC.