New host Kristen Welker took a virtual barrage of hatred over her maiden voyage at the helm of “Meet the Press” — and the cohosts of ABC’s “The View” used Monday’s broadcast to join the pile-on.
The hate stemmed from the fact that Welker’s first show featured a one-on-one interview with former President Donald Trump — which prompted a number of leftists to call for a boycott of the interview and even of Welker’s show going forward.
Regular cohost Ana Navarro appeared to take a similar position on Monday morning, complaining that when Trump was being interviewed, nobody ever won.
Navarro began by touting Welker’s accomplishment, taking over the longest-running political show on television and being the first woman of color to do so — and she noted that Welker had gone out of her way to thank the women who had come before her to make that possible.
But then she turned on the host over her decision to interview Trump: “I wish she had not done a Trump interview as her first one, because I think nobody ever wins with a Trump interview. Nobody looks good because it’s like — you know, it’s like interviewing an insane person. Actually, it is interviewing an insane person.”
WATCH:
Alyssa Farah Griffin praised Welker as "one of the best interviewers out there" and commended her on getting Trump to "basically confess to a crime."
She also said Trump's interview proved "He's not mentally equipped" for a second crack at the job. pic.twitter.com/VhSF41owvx— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 18, 2023
Cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin weighed in as well, saying that Welker truly deserved the position and was “one of the best interviewers out there.”
Griffin went on to say that she believed Americans needed to hear from Trump — and argued that Welker had gotten him to “basically confess to a crime” during the interview when she got him to admit that he “needed votes” to win in 2020.
But the real takeaway, according to Griffin, was the way Trump handled answering questions under pressure. “In the course of like 30 seconds, he said we’re about to spark World War Two, he was convinced he was running against Barack Obama, so I would just like to say for the record, he’s only a couple of years younger, he’s not mentally equipped, but he’s also unfit character-wise,” she said.