Pick-Me: How Alyssa Farah Griffin Abandoned Her Conservatism For Liberal Popularity

During a private recording of “The View’s” Behind the Table Podcast for fans at a New York City winery, co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin reflected on being the show’s second-longest-running “conservative” behind Elisabeth Hasselbeck. However, what she described as her secret to success sounded less like sticking to her principles and bringing an opposing perspective to the table and more like abandoning her worldview to placate the liberals who hated her.

According to Farah Griffin, the way to get “The View” audience to like you was to be “authentic.” But as she spoke, it became clear that she had to appease the rabidly liberal audience by giving up the Republican position, or “talking points,” as she dismissed them:

If you’re trying to play a part, if you’re on GOP talking points, if you seem like you aren’t being sincere and with the audience and what you believe in what you’re saying, they see through it. People don’t to — Viewers don’t tune into our show because they want like punditry, they want to see multifaceted women talking about different aspects of their life; and thinking through, and you can change your opinions on things, you can evolve and you can grow.

Sounding like a case of Stockholm Syndrome, Farah Griffin laughed along as she recalled how “brutal” and “trauma[tizing]” the tryouts were for the position. Of course, Sunny Hostin cackled in the background as the story was told.

Alyssa Farah Griffin is the second-longest running “conservative” co-host in the history of The View.
She says her “secret” for being able to stay so long is abandoning the conservative position and not even trying to argue it in good faith:

BRIAN TETA: Alyssa, you are now the second longest tenured host in this conservative seat on the end of the table

SUNNY HOSTIN: Look at that! Look at that!

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: I’m coming for you. Elizabeth [sic] Hasselback [sic].

TETA: It’s Elisabeth Hasselbeck and you. It’s a tough seat. Not everyone can hack it because most don’t last more than a season or so. What’s the secret?

FARAH GRIFFIN: I don’t know. I think the best advice I got was – It was actually very similar from Abby Huntsman and from Elisabeth Hasselbeck, which is, you have to be authentic with The View audience. If you’re trying to play a part, if you’re on GOP talking points, if you seem like you aren’t being sincere and with the audience and what you believe in what you’re saying, they see through it.

People don’t to – Viewers don’t tune into our show because they want like punditry, they want to see multifaceted women talking about different aspects of their life; and thinking through, and you can change your opinions on things, you can evolve and you can grow.

So, I think the authenticity thing and it took me a little bit to grow into that. I think my first season I felt like, ‘well I have to hold this seat because of this view’ and then I’m like I’m also now a mom, I’m the youngest at the table, I’m somebody who struggled with fertility on the show. Like, there are so many things to me beyond just like I’m a Republican who worked for Republicans.

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 22, 2026

Farah Griffin has survived because she no longer pushes back. Here’s a look back on how it was essentially beaten out of her.

In October 2021, while she was still trying out for the show, Hostin attacked Farah Griffin at the table, comparing her to a “Star Wars” Stormtrooper working for Darth Vader, President Trump. Farah Griffin didn’t offer a meaningful defense of herself:

HOSTIN: It’s a fair question, you know who this person is, he’s the person that’s grab them by the you-know-what and you’re working for him. 

FARAH: I didn’t have any illusion about who the president was. I should go back further. I was Vice President Pence’s Press Secretary for two years, so I was tangentially working with the Trump White House. Different building but serving a very different man. 

HOSTIN: You’re not working for Darth Vader, but you’re a Stormtrooper. 

FARAH: [Chuckles] That is actually very well said….

That’s some Disney brand synergy.

In June of 2022, Joy Behar decried the very idea of having a former Trump administration official like Farah Griffin on the show, let alone as a co-host. “These people who are now all, like, recovering addicts — recovering addicts in the Trump world that come on, even on this show. They come on this show, they go on other shows, and they’re turning on Trump,” she shrieked.

Farah Griffin’s efforts to placate the cast began during the audition process. Earlier in the same month as Behar’s condemnation (June 2022), Farah Griffin made it clear she would be in their Democratic corner for 2024. “I’m curious. Like who are the Dems going to run? Where is like the Obama energy that WE could bring?” she asked. Realizing she came on too strong for someone supposedly looking to be the “conservative,” she backpedaled and revised: “That you guys could bring.”

After getting the nod and going full-time, during the 2023 battle for who would be the Speaker of the House, Farah Griffin suggested Republicans should follow the lead of a far-left progressive for who to nominate:

“Ro Khanna, a very progressive member of the Left, has said he would be willing to support someone like a Mike Gallagher, a Fred Upton, somebody who is a moderate Republican if they’re some agreements that there are actually going to move bills to help the American people.”

In the wake of the first two assassination attempts on Trump, she blamed him: “He is the only person with that level of responsibility and platform who’s not holding himself accountable to how he’s fed this rhetoric.”

Farah Griffin can’t be counted on to stand against her fellow co-hosts, even with something as reprehensible as Hostin calling Ambassador Nikki Haley a racial “chameleon” and claiming she uses a fake name. Sara Haines called out Hostin’s use of a fake name (Sunny), with Farah Griffin quipping, “I didn’t want to be the one to say it.”

In 2024, she helped “The View” try to sell the American people on Vice President Kamala Harris by repeatedly and falsely calling her a “centrist.” And it was a very big deal on the show when she announced that she would be voting for Harris.

With a little over a week to go until the 2026 midterms, she didn’t advocate for Republicans to be elected on Friday. Instead, she declared that electing independents was “something I strongly believed in.” “I think that the two-party system makes both sides very beholden to special interests,” she added.

Alyssa Farah Griffin is supposed is one of The View’s token conservatives, but she calls for so-called “independents” to be elected instead of Republicans.
And to prove how uninformed she is, she claims there are no background checks for firearms. https://t.co/Ho0xrnN6sV

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) October 23, 2026

No one has called out Farah Griffin as a sellout more harshly than Kellyanne Conway. During a contentious May 2022 appearance, Conway looked Farah Griffin in the face and said: “We’re supposed to think that you’ve seen the light and not just see your name in lights.”

Mic drop.

***

Nicholas C. Fondacaro is the associate editor for the Media Research Center and NewsBusters.