If Vice President JD Vance decides to run for the nation&#8217;s top office in 2028, he already has one unlikely endorsement — albeit an unofficial one — from Joy Behar.
When Vance appeared on Tuesday&#8217;s broadcast of &#8220;The View,&#8221; no one expected him to get along with the decidedly liberal and vocally anti-Trump hosts of the ABC talk show — and certainly, no one expected him to walk away from the table with one of them encouraging him to run for president — but that is what happened.
WATCH:
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Joy Behar admits she&#8217;s smitten for JD Vance and asked him to run for President backstage &#8220;because he has a good vibe&#8221; and is &#8220;intelligent&#8221; after his appearance on The View:
&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe that he&#8217;s a bad guy.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/MOvQM5eTZ6">pic.twitter.com/MOvQM5eTZ6</a>
— Danny De Urbina (@dannydeurbina) <a href="https://x.com/dannydeurbina/status/2067276383374455162?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Following Tuesday&#8217;s broadcast, Behar sat down with longtime executive producer Brian Teta for the &#8220;Behind the Table&#8221; podcast — and they jumped right into a conversation about Vance&#8217;s appearance and how he&#8217;d surprised them by being genuinely funny.
&#8220;Listen, he talked about his giant head for a while. I enjoyed that,&#8221; Teta smiled, referencing Vance&#8217;s claim that people often only saw his big head and didn&#8217;t notice he was tall. &#8220;He sat down with a joke, I thought that was pretty good, his press team told him that this was a table of MAGA Republicans —&#8221;
&#8220;Yeah, that was funny,&#8221; Behar agreed.
&#8220;And apparently — oh, I&#8217;m getting a note here — you told him during the break that he should run for president because he has a good vibe,&#8221; Teta said then, turning to Behar for a response.
&#8220;I think that even though — for a Republican, mind you, I&#8217;m not a Republican,&#8221; Behar said. &#8220;I think possibly I voted for Michael Bloomberg once for mayor, who was supposedly — supposedly he was a Republican. I don&#8217;t mind a Republican on the city level because it needs a little discipline. But on the national level, I want somebody with a good heart, and those are more in the Democratic Party in my opinion.&#8221;
&#8220;They care about the poor, they help people,&#8221; Behar continued, adding, &#8220;The Republican Party is more about saving taxes for rich people, so I&#8217;m not a Republican.&#8221;
Teta interjected then to say that Vance had admitted backstage that appearing on &#8220;The View&#8221; had made him more nervous than preparing for his vice presidential debate against Governor Tim Walz (D-MN).
&#8220;He should be,&#8221; Behar shot back, arguing that the ladies with whom she shared the table brought &#8220;many receipts&#8221; when they presented their questions. &#8220;Truthfully, as I said to you in the beginning of this conversation, I don&#8217;t think that he&#8217;s a bad guy. So if he runs against, say, [Governor] Gavin Newsom (D-CA), that will be an interesting debate to see those two because they&#8217;re both intelligent.&#8221;
During the podcast, Behar and Teta also revealed that Vance had set no ground rules for the interview — meaning that they could ask him absolutely anything and he had no advance knowledge of what they might want to talk about — and that he&#8217;d agreed to those terms without contest.
Teta then said the most important thing about the interview was the &#8220;bar&#8221; it set — meaning that any future presidential or vice presidential candidate would be unwise to refuse an appearance on &#8220;The View.&#8221;
&#8220;They all will. They have to stop here. They want the female vote,&#8221; Behar declared, suggesting that candidates could only access American female voters through their show.
Teta said he&#8217;d like to invite Secretary of State Marco Rubio to appear, and Behar shot back, &#8220;We&#8217;ll put him on with Ana Navarro, that will be interesting to watch. Talk about a cage match.&#8221;
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On their podcast, The View proclaims that &#8220;the bar is set&#8221; and presidential candidates NEED to come on the show like VP Vance. 
Joy Behar Suggests The View is the gatekeepers to &#8220;the female vote.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/7oIlQK0Uzc">pic.twitter.com/7oIlQK0Uzc</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://x.com/NickFondacaro/status/2067255767900504185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 17, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Vice President Vance Speaks On Fraud Crackdown

Joy Behar Urges JD Vance To Run For President

JD Vance

Joy Behar

Media

Politics

The View

Vice President JD Vance Visits “Hannity”

JD Vance Takes On The Women Of ‘The View’

Epstein Files

When I saw the news that Vice President JD Vance would be appearing on “The View,” my concern as someone who works every day with right-of-center political voices was not about how he would perform. It was genuine confusion over why conservatives continue handing ratings, relevance, and credibility to the very institutions that have spent years demonizing them.
Nobody seriously doubts that JD Vance can handle “The View.” There may not be a Republican politician in America today better equipped for exactly that environment. Vance is quick, disciplined, and uniquely skilled at walking into hostile interviews without allowing himself to be defined by the hostility.
That ability is a large part of why many conservatives came to understand what Donald Trump saw in Vance. Plenty of Republicans questioned whether it was the right choice. The issue was not that Vance lacked intelligence or talent. The concern was that Trump had chosen someone who immediately found himself at the center of a damaging political controversy: the “childless cat lady” comments.
These comments became exactly the kind of media storm campaigns dread. Democrats saw an opening, critics argued they would alienate women voters, and many wondered whether Trump had created an unnecessary vulnerability for himself.
It was not until Vance sat across from Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” in August 2024 that Trump’s confidence in Vance started to make sense. Vance did not dodge questions about his “cat lady” comments, nor did he retreat into meaningless consultant language. He pushed back where he disagreed and explained his broader argument, shifting the conversation toward families, affordability, and the pressures Americans face in building their lives.
Whether you support him or not, it has become impossible to ignore: JD Vance is an exceptionally gifted communicator. He can debate, think on his feet, and challenge people without appearing rattled. He has the rare political skill of walking directly into difficult conversations and coming out stronger.
That is why my concern with his appearance on “The View” has nothing to do with whether he will succeed. He almost certainly will. The issue is what happens when he does.
A strong performance from Vance means viral clips, massive attention, and renewed relevance for the very platform conservatives argue has spent years treating them with contempt.
This is not a random Republican commentator looking for exposure. This is the vice president of the United States and one of the most important figures in the future of the Republican Party. Whether or not he eventually runs for president, Vance is clearly positioned as one of the leading figures who could carry Trump’s political movement into its next chapter.
Access to someone like that has value, and “The View” is about to receive all the benefits that come with it.
The ratings will come. Clips will spread across every social media platform. Conservatives will celebrate Vance pushing back. Liberals will celebrate the hosts challenging him. Everyone will argue for days, and “The View” will have gotten exactly what it wanted: attention and relevance.
The question is why conservatives keep handing it to them.
For years, Republicans have argued that the problem with much of legacy media is not simply disagreement. Debate is necessary. Conservatives should sit down with people who see the world differently.
The problem is the contempt.
Shows like “The View” do not merely criticize Republican policies. They routinely portray Trump and his supporters as something darker than political opponents. Conservatives are labeled hateful, racist, dangerous, and morally defective. The disagreement is no longer simply about competing visions for the country. It has become a judgment about the character of the people who hold those views.
That rhetoric has consequences. America is living through an era of extraordinary political hostility. There have been multiple attempts on President Trump’s life. Political violence and dehumanization are no longer abstract concerns; they are realities.
Yet the institutions that contribute to this culture rarely have any incentive to change. They get to continue the same behavior and still receive access to the most important figures in the movement they spend their days attacking.
Joy Behar reinforced this disconnect last year when she suggested Republicans were not appearing on “The View” because they were afraid to face tough questions. The response from conservatives was immediate. Clay Travis, Buck Sexton, Riley Gaines, Matt Walsh, Jennifer Sey, and others pushed back with <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/conservatives-come-receipts-after-the-view-claims-theyre-afraid-come-show">receipts</a> showing a very different reality: they were not avoiding the show. They had been trying to get on it.
As a publicist who works primarily with right-of-center personalities, I can attest to the falsehood of Behar’s excuses firsthand. Conservatives are not afraid of “The View.” In fact, many actively seek opportunities to sit across from people who disagree with them and make their case to audiences outside the conservative bubble.
Conservatives are eager to enter those hostile rooms. But they are continually blocked from entering them at all.
But now, “The View” gets JD Vance. Not because the show has changed. Not because the conversation has improved. And not because there has been some meaningful effort to understand the voters the hosts have spent years mocking.
They get him because everyone knows it will make great television.
But what happens after the cameras turn off?
The hosts of “The View” are unlikely to walk away reconsidering how they talk about conservatives. The next day, the same conversations will continue. The same voters will be reduced to the same stereotypes. The same political divide everyone claims to worry about will remain exactly where it was.
And “The View” will have gotten everything it wanted.
It will have received the ratings, attention, and cultural relevance that come with hosting one of the most important figures in the Republican Party. And it will have received all of that without changing anything about how it covers conservatives.
That is the broken incentive structure.
If institutions can spend years demonizing conservatives and still receive access to the movement’s most influential voices whenever they want a viral moment, why would they ever change?
JD Vance has already proven he can walk into hostile rooms and win. The question now is whether conservatives should keep rewarding those rooms simply because they know how to win inside them.
***
Vanessa Santos is a political communications specialist and the president and CEO of Renegade DC.

JD Vance Brings The News To The View’s Fake News

ABC News

Conservatives

DW Opinion

Fake News

Media Bias

Co-host Sunny Hostin came in hot this week, proclaiming on Monday that Americans had good reason to doubt the results of the 2024 presidential election. Did she provide any evidence? Of course, not. It was just another example of ABC’s “bona fide news program” poisoning America’s body politic with misinformation and lies.
Spurred on by President Donald Trump’s Meet the Press interview, where he clashed with moderator Kristen Welker over California’s election system, co-host Sara Haines falsely suggested that election denialism only occurred since Trump first came into office. Cue the clips of Democrats from 2000.
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Sunny Hostin, who claimed for years Trump stole the 2016 election, says people are right to think Trump stole the 2024 presidential election and gets a roaring applause from the audience:
SARA HAINES: But if you&#8217;re really reflecting on yourself, this problem has been about a… <a href="https://t.co/HTPZ6ttaKV">pic.twitter.com/HTPZ6ttaKV</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://x.com/NickFondacaro/status/2064013794955735197?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2026</a></blockquote>
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Haines clutched her pearls about how it was supposedly only a Republican conspiracy, but had since grown popular with Democrats. Hostin interjected to <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/06/08/cant-believe-sunny-hostin-justifies-skepticism-trump-2024" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/06/08/cant-believe-sunny-hostin-justifies-skepticism-trump-2024&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1781367427704000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2yIcuaMtVDdkC1EdVqwPol">give credence</a> to their reasoning, since it made no sense to them that Trump won:
<blockquote>
HAINES: It&#8217;s mainstream with the Republicans, but Alyssa, I&#8217;ll take it one step further, Democrats now are questioning the elections. They went from having an 89 percent pre-2024 belief in the system to 64 percent trust in the system.
HOSTIN: And people can&#8217;t believe Trump won!
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It really shouldn’t be a surprise to Haines that so many Democrats think that way because The View had actively added fuel to that fire.
In 2025, there were not <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/05/01/abc-news-host-suggests-trump-rigged-2024-presidential" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/05/01/abc-news-host-suggests-trump-rigged-2024-presidential&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1781367427704000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3xkMKOWJ3p_cDXzXDqULJW">one</a> but <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/07/god-knows-what-else-he-may-have-done-abc-suggests-musk-stole" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/07/07/god-knows-what-else-he-may-have-done-abc-suggests-musk-stole&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1781367427704000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3qErWMxjbAgf-fjXyXxNaG">three</a> different instances of The View suggesting that Trump stole the 2024 presidential election. When Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk was on the rocks, Hostin teamed up with Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar to suggest the billionaire <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/06/04/abc-news-musk-killed-300000-kids-knows-how-trump-stole" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/06/04/abc-news-musk-killed-300000-kids-knows-how-trump-stole&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1781367427704000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2dOGTCRRAglUs-TIklJq_e">knew how Trump stole the election</a>, and the president was scared of him.
Hostin was also one of the peddlers of the Russia Collusion Hoax after the 2016 election and would call Trump an illegitimate president, as Hillary Clinton did. She wouldn’t <a href="https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2022/09/07/doing-her-part-view-defends-2016-election-denial-jean-pierre" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2022/09/07/doing-her-part-view-defends-2016-election-denial-jean-pierre&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1781367427704000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2aYtWUBVXMSJ-c9efb4Fs3">renounce</a> that belief until 2022.
Throughout 2026, The View has <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/05/06/view-seemingly-hint-political-violence-claim-gop-steal">repeatedly</a> suggested that Trump will <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/02/03/whoopi-do-something-about-trump-he-can-steal-election" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/02/03/whoopi-do-something-about-trump-he-can-steal-election&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1781367427704000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1q1_IoaVo17TPiMbZ1Itg9">steal</a> the 2026 midterm elections. Hostin had even <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/01/30/abc-good-pretti-deaths-part-plot-steal-2026-elections-and" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/01/30/abc-good-pretti-deaths-part-plot-steal-2026-elections-and&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1781367427704000&amp;usg=AOvVaw09wr6MZr6mIqtEmJOq4u6s">suggested</a> that the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota were part of the plot.
“I actually think that this is a coordinated effort to steal the 2026 election,” Hostin said. “Remember what happened in Minnesota with Pretti and Good. Pam Bondi sent a letter to the governor of Minnesota and said that they would withdraw ICE agents if they provided all of their voter data.”
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ABC News co-host Sunny Hostin claims there is a &#8220;coordinated effort to steal the 2026 election&#8221; for Trump, claims that the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are a part of it, and claims the federal government are trying to steal social security numbers to steal the election. <a href="https://t.co/AWSQPtYE6a">pic.twitter.com/AWSQPtYE6a</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://x.com/NickFondacaro/status/2017269694869213659?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 30, 2026</a></blockquote>
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It’s getting harder and harder for Disney and ABC to make the case to the FCC that The View is “bona fide news.”

ABC’s “The View” – Season 21

2016, 2024, 2026: Ten Years Of The View’s Election Denial

Conspiracy Theory

Elections

Sunny Hostin

After back-to-back weeks of The View’s liberal ladies making up lies about the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/girl-math-sunny-hostin-lies-about-the-cost-of-blm-damage-and-eggs?author=Nicholas+Fondacaro&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Girl+Math%3A+Sunny+Hostin+Lies+About+the+Cost+of+BLM+Damage+and+Eggs">cost of living</a>, the Black Lives Matter riots, and trying to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/abc-news-the-view-shows-off-expertise-in-fake-history?author=Nicholas+Fondacaro&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=ABC+News%E2%80%99+%E2%80%98The+View%E2%80%99+Shows+Off+Expertise+In+Fake+History">revise history</a>, they kicked off June by reminding everyone that they’ll let their guests get away with just about anything if they like them. Their headline guests were former First Lady Jill Biden and author/podcaster Kara Swisher.
Appearing on The View to peddle her book to their loyal liberal viewers, Biden drew outrage Tuesday when boasting about how good her step-son Hunter Biden was doing and the family he was building. But Jill seemingly left out Hunter’s daughter Navy, an apparent shame the Bidens had tried to hide in the past.
“Hunter is doing so great, and he&#8217;s sober. He has a beautiful child, I mean, yes, thank you. Who&#8217;s named Beau. He named his son after Beau, and Beau named his son after Hunter. Just shows the bond,” she said.
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Jill Biden implies Hunter Biden has only had 1 child, a boy:
&#8220;Hunter is doing so great and he&#8217;s sober. He has a beautiful child, I mean, yes, thank you. Who&#8217;s named Beau. He named his son after Beau and Beau named his son after Hunter. So just shows the bond.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/PHVYK9KLAx">pic.twitter.com/PHVYK9KLAx</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://x.com/NickFondacaro/status/2061849717869265334?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 2, 2026</a></blockquote>
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None of the cast members <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNvggHmdsAU">pressed</a> her on it, just like they didn’t press her on why she didn’t take President Joe Biden to the hospital after, as she first claimed to CBS News, she thought he had a stroke during the debate:
<blockquote>
SARA HAINES: So, I understand completely your first instinct to defend him after that debate we were just speaking of. But did you feel any of that fear, as his wife right there beside him, to protect him? He had given so much of himself and to see you even saying, like, ‘I thought he was having a medical episode, I was concerned.’ Was there any part of you that went into protection mode of like, ‘Joe, you can&#8217;t keep doing this? They&#8217;re taking so much from you.’
JILL BIDEN: But the doctors told me he was fine.
</blockquote>
With co-host Joy Behar jetting off to Europe to produce her play, they brought Swisher on to fill in.
It was her first time as a guest co-host, but she was comfortable enough to completely ignore Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s decorated military service and suggest he didn’t have any military experience and was somehow a DEI hire:
<blockquote>
SWISHER: But it focuses on what you were saying: lack of expertise. And that&#8217;s sort of everywhere. Like, look, Pete Hegseth —
HOSTIN: And he talked about DEI so much. It means, you know, ‘didn’t earn it’ now.
SWISHER: This is DEI, right?
HOSTIN: Yeah.
SWISHER: Didn’t earn it. Exactly. You have Pete Hegseth, who was a talk show host.
</blockquote>
Hegseth is a <a href="https://www.war.gov/About/Biographies/Biography/Article/4040890/hon-pete-hegseth/">decorated Army combat veteran</a> with deployments to the war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, none of The View cast have served in the military.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Filling in for Joy Behar on The View, Kara Swisher falsely suggests Pete Hegseth has no military experience and has only ever been &#8220;a talk show host.&#8221; She claims Scott Pelley was &#8220;shoved out&#8221; because of a &#8220;lack of expertise&#8221; at CBS. <a href="https://t.co/79plxr8RMG">pic.twitter.com/79plxr8RMG</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://x.com/NickFondacaro/status/2062190882472747039?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
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If you think The View would try to hand-wave the lies away with one of their infamous “legal notes,” you’d be mistaken. The View has stopped issuing formal “legal notes.” A <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/12/19/view-went-all-2025-without-legal-note-they-were-needed">NewsBusters study</a> found that The View had not issued a “legal note” in all of 2025.
Additionally, in a recent interview with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUTgkRmtlpA&amp;t=16s">Fox News</a>, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr said they’re hearing many arguments against The View being a “bona fide news” program: “Disney&#8217;s The View is now asserting to the FCC that they are a &#8216;bona fide news&#8217; program, and we&#8217;ve started an enforcement action there&#8230; At this point, The View and Disney have not established that they are subject to the &#8216;bona fide news&#8217; exception. And in fact, as you noted, we are now seeing dozens of Disney-affiliated TV stations independently owned in Texas, effectively disagreeing with Disney that The View is &#8216;bona fide news.&#8217;”
Both the study and the comments from TV stations were more stones on the mountain they needed to climb to prove to the FCC they were somehow a “bona fide news” program.
***
Nicholas C. Fondacaro is the associate editor for the Media Research Center and NewsBusters.

FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES, DR. JILL BIDEN, SUNNY HOSTIN

The View: The News Show That Shames Toddlers And Warriors

Jill Biden

Pete Hegseth

While Disney and ABC were <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/05/22/fcc-chairman-responds-disneys-claim-view-bona-fide-news">duking it out </a>with the Federal Communications Commission over whether or not The View was a “bona fide news” program (HINT: they’re not), they were proving that they certainly were not bona fide historians. From the origins of Memorial Day to claims that President Joe Biden never embarrassingly fell asleep while performing his presidential duties, The View cast was engaging in revisionist history this week.
While attacking Secretary of War Pete Hegseth for his Memorial Day speech at West Point and claiming he was ignorant of military history, co-hosts Sara Haines and Sunny Hostin claimed he was “losing sight of the first Memorial Day.”
According to her, Memorial Day was a holiday celebrated by blacks and women before becoming popularized by whites.
<blockquote>
HAINES: It was celebrated because Union soldiers, black soldiers that were put in mass graves, a lot of the black community came out and said, “We&#8217;re going to honor these soldiers by giving them a proper burial for giving their life to a country that did not treat them as equals.”
HOSTIN: So, Memorial Day was started by black people!
HAINES: By black people, and then a year later, it was women who laid flowers on the graves of these people.
</blockquote>
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs tells a slightly different story. According to the VA’s <a href="https://www.cem.va.gov/history/Memorial-Day-history.asp">Memorial Day history </a>page, it was a multi-racial affair: “In the waning years of the Civil War (1861–1865) and immediately afterward, communities in the North and South, Black and White, decorated soldiers&#8217; graves with floral honors on springtime ‘decoration days.’”
Even left-wing <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/the-origins-of-memorial-day-and-how-it-has-evolved">PBS doesn’t acknowledge</a> a singular racial origin, noting that “The practice was already widespread. Waterloo, New York, began a formal observance on May 5, 1866, and was later proclaimed to be the holiday&#8217;s birthplace.” PBS does note that blacks in Charleston, South Carolina, held a memorial for Union dead who died in a Confederate prison, but it doesn’t appear to be for only black soldiers.
Later in the week, they tried to do some more revisionist history on a more recent event. Since President Donald Trump’s health was the topic du jour, they toed the liberal media line that Trump was supposedly falling asleep all over the place.
Co-host Joy Behar seemed to scoff at the notion by bitterly asking, “Wait a second. Joe Biden didn&#8217;t fall asleep, did he?”
Well Joy, while meeting with the leaders of African nations in Angola, <a href="https://x.com/jacobkschneider/status/1864403426303529321?s=20">Biden fell asleep</a>. When attending the late President Jimmy Carter’s funeral at the National Cathedral, <a href="https://x.com/jesseyjay94/status/2053911230528499796?s=20">Biden fell asleep</a>. When attending the COP26 summit in Glasgow, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBUgHkbtm9I">Biden fell asleep</a>.
To brag about “what Sleepy Joe got done while he was asleep,” moderator Whoopi Goldberg read from a note card someone gave her and claimed Biden “oversaw an historic economy that produced over 16 million jobs” and “revitalized NATO.”
Obviously, no serious person gives Biden credit for that number, since it was the economy coming back online as COVID lockdowns were being lifted. Even <a href="https://thedispatch.com/article/assessing-claims-about-job-growth-under-joe-biden/">The Dispatch admits </a>that. Meanwhile, the pressure Trump put on NATO in his first term and the war in Ukraine were what spurred the members of the military alliance to invest in rearmament.
ABC News shouldn’t be allowed to rewrite our history like this. Especially the parts we&#8217;ve seen with our own eyes.
***
Nicholas C. Fondacaro is the associate editor for the Media Research Center and NewsBusters.

ABC’s “The View” – Season 25

ABC News’ ‘The View’ Shows Off Expertise In Fake History

Memorial Day

Ever since <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2025/12/19/view-went-all-2025-without-legal-note-they-were-needed">abandoning</a> the use of formal &#8220;legal notes&#8221; last year, The View’s lies have been getting more brazen and more outlandish. Take co-host Sunny Hostin, for example. On Thursday’s episode, she ran up a mighty exorbitant tab with multiple falsehoods when it came to the cost of her beloved Black Lives Matter “uprisings” and the price for eggs.
According to <a href="https://x.com/NickFondacaro/status/2057480303631818897?s=20">Hostin’s revisionist history</a>, not much was damaged by the BLM riots of 2020. “So, I just want to make that part clear. They were very limited destruction of property and violence during&#8230; the Black Lives Matter uprisings,” she scolded critics.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Sunny Hostin defends the deadly Black Lives Matter riots of 2020. She claims there was only &#8220;very limited destruction of property and violence.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/8TWNsP2DEE">pic.twitter.com/8TWNsP2DEE</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/2057480303631818897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
In reality, the damage the riots inflicted was extensive. As <a href="https://www.axios.com/2020/09/16/riots-cost-property-damage">Axios reported at the time</a>, the damages cost between $1-2 billion and were the “most expensive in insurance history.” They noted the cost eclipsed the previous record holder, 1992’s Rodney King riots in L.A.
In terms of the ultimate cost, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/06/08/14-days-of-protests-19-dead/?sh=7bad05ac4de4">19 people died</a> during the riots. Many were killed by the rioters or while trying to allegedly commit other crimes.
<a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/05/21/sunny-hostin-claims-blm-uprisings-didnt-destroy-much-eggs">Hostin’s girl math </a>also led her to outlandishly assert that the cost for a dozen eggs was “$10.”
“It doesn&#8217;t cost 99 cents to make lunch. It costs like $10 to buy eggs,” she shouted in response to a soundbite of Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary saying young adults needed to bring their lunch to work to save money, instead of always eating out.
According to <a href="https://www.ams.usda.gov/mnreports/ams_3725.pdf">a recent USDA report</a>, the average price of eggs in America was $2.21 per dozen. Additionally, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111">noted</a> the cost of eggs over the last 46 years topped out at $6.23 per dozen in early 2025 and had dropped off sharply since.
The View had something of a BOGO sale on lying about costs this week.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Sunny Hostin claims &#8220;it costs $10 to buy eggs&#8221; and calls Kevin O&#8217;Leary &#8220;out of touch&#8221; for saying young people just starting out spend too much on stupid stuff. 
She previously has bragged about paying someone to grocery shop for her since COVID. <a href="https://t.co/AmDbfepwbq">pic.twitter.com/AmDbfepwbq</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/2057491015297114237?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 21, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Hostin and co-host Joy Behar <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2026/05/19/behar-hostin-claim-trumprx-giving-people-tainted-deadly">decried TrumpRX</a> and tried to scare people away from getting low-cost prescriptions via the program.
Behar made it seem as though the program was selling Trump-branded knock-off drugs and suggested they were going to kill everyone: “And I like Mark Cuban. I&#8217;ve always liked him, but this is a mistake, and once Trump puts his name on prescriptions, we&#8217;re all going to die!”
Hostin would later back up Behar’s smear that the drugs were unsafe, asserting, “There could be shortcuts involved.” “Anything he touches is tainted! I don’t trust it!” she shouted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
ABC News co-host Joy Behar claims &#8220;we&#8217;re all going to die&#8221; because Trump wants to lower drug prices with TrumpRX. She even lashes out at Mark Cuban for getting involved. 
She shouts at her co-hosts who support lowering drug costs. <a href="https://t.co/Wi3SNqU41J">pic.twitter.com/Wi3SNqU41J</a>
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) <a href="https://twitter.com/NickFondacaro/status/2056771847732031846?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Of course, they provided no evidence to support their claims. <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/personal-finance/banking/article/trumprx-expands-discount-drug-offerings-what-consumers-should-know-153118576.html">TrumpRX is a marketplace</a>, and the drugs were from their approved manufacturers.
The View is an ABC News program, by the way.
***
Nicholas C. Fondacaro is the associate editor for the Media Research Center and NewsBusters.

WHOOPI GOLDBERG, SARA HAINES, JOY BEHAR, SUNNY HOSTIN, ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN

Girl Math: Sunny Hostin Lies About the Cost of BLM Damage and Eggs

&#8220;The View&#8221; co-hosts Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin blew a gasket on Tuesday&#8217;s show, reacting to President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-and-mark-cubans-white-house-moment-takes-unexpected-turn?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+And+Mark+Cuban’s+White+House+Moment+Takes+Unexpected+Turn">reducing the cost</a> of hundreds of prescription drugs for Americans.
Behar and Hostin railed about drugs being added to the federal government&#8217;s direct-to-consumer drug site, called TrumpRx, which now boasts more than 600 drugs. The pair claimed that Trump had bad intentions, thereby discounting the achievement.
&#8220;First of all, you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas,&#8221; Behar said. &#8220;Once Trump puts his name on prescriptions, we’re all going to die, okay? He put his name on the Trump Shuttle, the Trump Vodka, Trump University, the Trump Hotel, and my favorite, the casinos that all went bankrupt.&#8221;
Hostin said she was in complete agreement with Behar. She called Trump a &#8220;failed businessman&#8221; and bizarrely excoriated the president for saying he wanted to make Americans &#8220;wealthy.&#8221; Trump &#8220;didn&#8217;t say &#8216;healthy,'&#8221; Hostin reasoned.
&#8220;This is not a well-intentioned person,&#8221; she claimed. &#8220;He is not doing this out of the goodness of his heart!&#8221;
The peculiar take landed the pair at odds with some of their fellow leftist hosts. Sara Haines, for example, praised the price drop for Americans, even if she dislikes Trump.
“This helps people,&#8221; she said. &#8220;People who are literally suffering from illness and cannot pay for their medicine.”
In return, Hostin called her &#8220;so naive.&#8221;
Alyssa Farah Griffin also pushed back on the naysayers. &#8220;A medication I had to take for IVF is a tenth of the price on TrumpRx,&#8221; she explained.
&#8220;Whatever, it’s tacky that his name is on it,&#8221; Farah Griffin continued. &#8220;The average family, one third of Americans cut back on essential foods and utilities to be able to cover their prescription drug costs.&#8221;
&#8220;You’re not going to convince me that, just because Trump is involved, we should be like, ‘Screw it, don’t bring down prescription drugs,'&#8221; she added.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
🔥 MELTDOWN! The View’s Sara Haines FIRES BACK at co-hosts in FIERY shouting match over TrumpRx: “This helps people.. people who are literally suffering from illness and cannot pay for their medicine.”
Sunny Hostin seized on how Trump had quipped in footage of the event that he… <a href="https://t.co/RDULflCQkx">pic.twitter.com/RDULflCQkx</a>
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) <a href="https://twitter.com/TVNewsNow/status/2056820749793673218?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-and-mark-cubans-white-house-moment-takes-unexpected-turn?author=Amanda+Prestigiacomo&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Trump+And+Mark+Cuban’s+White+House+Moment+Takes+Unexpected+Turn">Trump And Mark Cuban’s White House Moment Takes Unexpected Turn</a>

Max Original’s “And Just Like That” Season 3 Photo Call

Leftist Talk Show Hosts Absolutely Livid That Trump’s Dropping Drug Prices

Ladies Of ‘The View’ Absolutely Livid Trump's Dropping Drug Prices

Donald Trump

Prescription Drugs

The hosts of “The View” pushed back on actor Billy Bob Thornton’s argument that celebrities should keep quiet about politics. 
They were reacting to comments Thornton made on the &#8220;Howie Mandel Does Stuff&#8221; podcast last week, where the “Landman” star paraphrased comedian Ricky Gervais and said celebrities should, &#8220;Get your little award and f*** off.&#8221;
“I don’t know anything about politics. I have no idea,&#8221; Thornton added. &#8220;And the stuff that I believe about it, I don’t want to force it down somebody else’s throat ’cause I’m not an expert on that.”
Thornton also said trusting celebrities is a mistake.
“The fact that people put so much gravitas [into] this group of people that pretends things,” he added. “Just because you played a doctor doesn’t mean you are a doctor, just because you played a hero doesn’t make you a hero. And the people that listen to you, no matter how much we talk, they don’t know us. It’s such a small circle of people that know you, know you enough to trust you in your opinion.”
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Billy Bob Thornton: “I Don’t Know Anything About Politics” | The View" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5NIqNzJc2IY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
On Monday&#8217;s episode of “The View,” co-host Joy Behar was furious with this concept, saying, &#8220;Imagine bragging about how uninformed you are.&#8221; 
Behar went on to praise celebrities like Bruce Springsteen and Robert De Niro, among the most radical leftist stars around, for always getting political. 
Co-host Sunny Hostin chimed in, saying, &#8220;We are at a crisis point in this country. I think democracy is participatory. I think when you have a platform, that means you have an outsized voice and when you have a platform, I think that you have a responsibility to speak up about what’s going on in this country and my view silence is complicity. We need every single ally to speak out.&#8221;
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin offered a different perspective, saying, &#8220;A, Billy Bob Thornton is one of my favorite actors. I’m never going to say a bad word about him, starting with that. But B, a lot of this table criticized George Clooney when he wrote his Biden op-ed.&#8221;
&#8220;That is a celebrity using his voice, saying what he believes, it can&#8217;t just be when they agree with your position,&#8221; Griffin added.
&#8220;He can say it and I can criticize it, that’s called free speech,&#8221; Behar shot back.
Griffin added that celebrities shouldn’t be “bullied” into speaking out, and that their participation by just posting on social media is more accurately described as “slacktivism.”
The panel continued to argue over whether celebs should voice political opinions, or whether, as Thornton suggested, their influence is often misplaced.

Billy Bob Thornton

WATCH: Billy Bob Thornton Has A Refreshingly Simple Answer When Politics Enter The Chat

Billy Bob Thorton

Celebrities

Entertainment

Television

On Tuesday’s episode of The View, it was Joy Behar’s turn to play biblical scholar. The longtime co-host confidently asserted: “Jesus himself did not run around saying, ‘I’m the Messiah, I’m the Messiah.’”
Co-host Sara Haines, to her credit, immediately responded with the obvious: “That’s exactly what Jesus said, ‘I am the Messiah.’”
Let that sink in. One of television&#8217;s most prominent voices just rewrote the Gospels on live television because it was politically convenient. This is what passes for insight on daytime television. And don’t forget that ABC considers The View a news show.
Let’s do what Behar clearly hasn’t: open a Bible.
In John 4, Jesus sits down with the Samaritan woman at the well. She says the Messiah is coming. Jesus replies plainly: “I who speak to you am He.” In John 8:58, He declares, “Before Abraham was, I am” — a direct claim to the divine name of God from Exodus 3:14. The religious leaders tried to stone Him on the spot for blasphemy. During His trial before the high priest Caiaphas in Matthew 26, when asked if He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, Jesus answered, “I am.” That confession is what led directly to His crucifixion. The entire trial and execution hinge on Jesus affirming His identity as the promised Messiah.
Is Joy Behar having a Joe Biden moment?
Jesus didn’t “run around” shouting it like a campaign slogan, but He most certainly claimed it — repeatedly and clearly and with divine authority. He spoke as one with authority over the Law itself. The very reason He was crucified was because He claimed to be the Messiah.
This isn’t just garden-variety ignorance. It’s the sneering arrogance of the secular Left, which loves a neutered, hippie version of Jesus who never makes any uncomfortable truth claims. In reality, the real Jesus is far too politically incorrect for The View set. He’s the one who called religious hypocrites a “brood of vipers” and insisted He was the exclusive path to salvation. Joy Behar and company like to memory-hole the parts of the story that don’t fit their narrative.
The View has long been a safe space for this kind of casual anti-Christian contempt. From Whoopi Goldberg’s historical illiteracy to the panel&#8217;s routine sneers at Christian nationalists, these multimillionaire celebrities treat faith as either a joke or a weapon, depending on the target. Behar isn’t just wrong here, she’s confidently, arrogantly wrong. The kind of wrong that only comes from someone who hasn’t cracked open a Bible since she <a href="https://ffrf.org/publications/day/joy-behar/#:~:text=Raised%20Catholic%2C%20she%20now%20identifies,felt%20that%20I%20was%20brainwashed.%E2%80%9D">“lost her faith”</a> to “find herself.”
The irony is thicker than her makeup. These are the same hosts who invoke Jesus when they want to shame conservatives about immigration or taxes, but the second a Republican does anything remotely culturally Christian, suddenly He’s just some vague figure who never made any bold claims about Himself. Meanwhile, actual Christianity — the kind grounded in Scripture — remains the most persecuted faith on earth, absorbing violence while progressives like Behar lecture us from their cushy ABC perch about who the real threat is.
While Behar was busy screaming to America about narcissism during Holy Week, millions of Christians were celebrating the holiest days of the year — the week the Messiah did exactly what the Gospels record: He claimed His title, carried His cross, and rose from the dead three days later to prove every word true.
Next time Joy wants to play Bible scholar, maybe she should try reading one first.

ABC News Host Joy Behar Claims Jesus Christ Never Called Himself Messiah

Christianity

A recent YouGov poll found that 47% of Americans <a href="https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54403-what-americans-think-about-overpopulation-birth-rates-and-children">view overpopulation</a> in the United States as a “very or somewhat serious problem,” while only 41% say the same about low birth rates.
The consequences of such inverted priorities are already catastrophic. America’s total fertility rate has collapsed to roughly 1.6 children per woman — far below the 2.1 replacement level needed to sustain a population without immigration.
But don’t share those statistics with Sunny Hostin over at “The View.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The View’s Sunny Hostin: “I think it’s really reckless to be suggesting that people should have children in this country.” <a href="https://t.co/iNRzG6AfcG">pic.twitter.com/iNRzG6AfcG</a>
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) <a href="https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/2038665904431497635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 30, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @theblaze/MRC/ABC&#8217;s The View/X.com
“It’s really reckless to be suggesting that people should have children,” said Hostin. “&#8230;when you now know, in this country, there is this affordability crisis and for a two-person household — a married household — you need over $400,000 for childcare.”
Now, you may think planning an armored car heist à la Michael Mann’s 1995 classic “Heat,” is reckless, but according to Hostin, I need <a href="https://alltherightmovies.com/feature/25-interesting-facts-about-heat/">$1.6 million</a> to take care of my eight children. Anything less and they <a href="https://x.com/theblaze/status/2038665904431497635">would be</a> impoverished, uneducated, homeless, and starving.
A taken-aback Ana Navarro then blurted out, “over the lifetime of a child, or what? A year?”
“No, a year,” Hostin said.
Hostin’s fearmongering would be laughable if it weren’t so effective. In April, the CDC announced that America reached a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr043.pdf">record low</a> in births in 2025, down 1% since 2024 and 23% since 2007. With an estimated population of 342 million, the United States witnessed <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/vsrr/vsrr043.pdf">3,606,400</a> births last year. In 1966, however, America saw a similar number, <a href="https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/1967/demographics/P25-368.pdf">3,661,000</a> births, drawn from a population of less than 200 million.
Hostin was born in October 1968, six months after Stanford professor <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/one-of-the-most-evil-men-in-history-just-died">Paul Ehrlich</a> published his landmark book, “The Population Bomb.” When every single one of Ehrlich’s predictions — from mass starvation in the 1970s to global mineral shortages in the 1980s — turned out wrong, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant in 1990.
Only 10% of Americans held a favorable opinion of Ehrlich at the time of his death, according to <a href="https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/54403-what-americans-think-about-overpopulation-birth-rates-and-children">YouGov</a> — not too shabby given that only 20% of respondents knew who he was. And yet a full 100% of us have been living in his world — or at least his narrative — ever since he sounded the false alarm that human beings are a form of pollution.
The MacArthur Foundation tipped its cap to Ehrlich’s checkerspot butterfly expertise, but anyone can study the “behavior of an invertebrate population”. His true genius lay in marketing to other spineless populations. 
“A pioneer in alerting the public to the problems of overpopulation,” the award <a href="https://www.macfound.org/fellows/class-of-1990/paul-r-ehrlich">citation</a> says. 
Paul Ehrlich may have been perennially wrong as a scientist, but he had a generational talent for scaring the wits out of dimwitted media personalities, craven politicians, cunning public health authorities, unimaginative screenwriters, and over-imaginative teachers. Exactly the type of marks a good con artist would need to capture if he were going to advance a narrative at war with reality. 
It worked.
On the same episode of “The View,” Sara Haines said, “The world has over 8 billion people. We no longer need to force people to procreate and pump out babies. We have arrived.&#8221;
Socially, the fallout is devastating. Smaller families mean fewer siblings, weaker extended kinship networks, and the erosion of the “social capital” that once bound communities together. Low fertility <a href="https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/635c69dc-6a5a-467b-b7b0-3ab906fb4a94/the-consequences-of-declining-fertility-for-social-capital.pdf">reduces</a> community participation, trust, and mutual support — the very glue of civil society. 
Militarily, the danger is existential. Fewer young Americans mean a smaller pool of potential recruits at the exact moment great-power competition intensifies. The Pentagon already struggles with recruitment shortfalls; an aging, childless society cannot field the force required to deter adversaries like China. 
Economically, the math is brutal. A shrinking native-born workforce cannot support the entitlement programs built for a growing population. Social Security and Medicare face insolvency as the ratio of workers to retirees plummets. Every country that has experienced persistent sub-replacement fertility has seen its GDP growth slow, innovation shrivel, and burden younger generations with crushing tax loads to fund the vacations of the old.
The problem with effective propaganda campaigns is that they are hard to reverse. South Korea serves as a warning. In 1960, the average South Korean woman had six children. After decades of state-backed “family planning” and “voluntary” sterilization services lovingly provided by USAID, fertility fell below replacement and eventually below 1. The Clinton State Department <a href="https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/gli/gli_sep1998.pdf">lauded</a> South Korean population control as one of America’s standout achievements.
No 20th-century public intellectual better apprehended how misanthropic an elite could be. Gilded Age robber barons were at least honest about their rapacious need for more; the postwar meritocrats of the 1960s thought themselves too enlightened for greed but enjoyed all that money just the same. Then, along came a Stanford butterfly researcher, insisting that your neighbors’ kids are hurting the environment, and if only you kept more resources for yourself, nature would heal.
A growing cohort of Americans, particularly young Americans, is waking up to the fact that Paul Ehrlich was wrong all along. And Sunny Hostin’s fearmongering, not the science, has always been the point. Gallup found that 43% of Americans aged 18-29 now say the ideal family will have more than 3 children — a <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/694640/americans-ideal-family-size-remains-above-two-children.aspx">13% jump</a> from the same cohort in 2011.
I remember the halcyon days of 2011 well. I welcomed my second daughter that year. Back then, the majority of my peers told pollsters that “Two is too many!” As Millennials settle into middle age, that number has plummeted by more than 20%. 
We are older and wise enough to know to turn the channel when “The View” comes on. Besides, chances are Michael Mann’s “Heat” is playing on some random cable channel at the very same time.
* * *
Terry Schilling is president of the American Principles Project.

The View’s “Behind The Table” Podcast

First Came Overpopulation Panic, Then Came The Birth Collapse

Abortion

Birth Rates

Children

Family Values

Population

YouGov

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
Parents need to earn $400,000 each year to afford children, according to “The View” panelist Sunny Hostin. Her absurd <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=953345053913270">claim</a> made headlines last week because it’s ridiculous, but the practice of overinflating these numbers is nothing new. For years we’ve been inundated with claims about how much it really costs to raise kids. Some research says from birth to age 18, on average, parents will spend upwards of $250,000 taking their newborn into adulthood.
So how much is it, really? And more importantly: Is it worth it?
Hostin, who has two children, was reacting to Daily Wire host Isabel Brown making what should not have been a radical statement. Brown <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/i-told-gen-z-to-get-married-and-have-kids-the-view-lost-its-mind">said</a>, “If you’re not encouraging your children to grow up … get married and have kids — more kids than they can afford, before they think they’re ready, it is high time to start.”
This statement couldn’t be more important at a time when over half of the world’s countries now have fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. It’s a problem that hits close to home. By 2030, nearly 45% of American women aged 25-44 are projected to be single and childless.
The media keep pushing stories about <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-viral-i-regret-my-kids-trend-is-getting-one-big-thing-wrong">regretful parents</a>, happy singles, and how “irresponsible” it is to have kids. They say it’s too expensive. But those of us with lots of kids, and way less money than Sunny Hostin, are here to say, no, it’s not.
As a regular middle class mom of five surrounded by other middle class friends and family in a very typical suburban town, I can tell you that most people I know don’t have a $400,000 income, but they do have kids. Most are homeowners with two cars who take annual vacations and whose children are involved in sports. Some of the wealthier friends have vacation homes, while some of those less well-off or single parents may rent their homes or do staycations instead.
My personal experience almost certainly differs from Hostin’s. However, I think most parents aren’t really spending $250,000 per child. These numbers are totally bogus.
A 2022 <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Brookings_Cost-to-raise-a-child_inflation-adjusted-2.pdf">report</a> from the Brookings Institution declared that a middle-income family with two children will spend approximately $310,605, adjusted for higher future inflation, to raise one child born in 2015 through age 17. A similar <a href="https://www.lendingtree.com/debt-consolidation/raising-a-child-study/">study</a> put out by LendingTree last year had comparable findings, estimating the average annual cost to be $29,419, or a total of $297,674 for 18 years of parenting. None of these estimates includes the cost of college, which is a whole other issue.
The studies all note the difference between raising a child in a high cost of living area, such as Hawaii, and a low cost of living area, such as Mississippi. But they claim these numbers represent the average. As someone living in a mid-range area where a parent could expect to pay somewhere in the mid-range for child-raising, all I can say is, huh?
LendingTree broke down its cost analysis by category, taking into consideration factors including rent, groceries, transportation, health insurance, daycare, and apparel. The chart lays out the “bare-bones cost of raising [a] small child in [the] U.S.” and allots an amount for each category. But there’s one thing it fails to mention, namely that you’d be spending some amount of money on rent, food, and other essentials even if you didn’t have children. Also, parents spend their money differently than non-parents.
These studies assume that parents are spending, let’s say, $1,000 dollars of clothing per year for themselves and then $500 per child. With that rationale, adding two children to the household would increase total apparel expenditures to $2,000, right? But that’s oversimplifying the reality of life. Being a parent is a constant sacrifice of self, a rebalancing of priorities and goals. In practice, moms are more likely to take that whole $1,000 budget and spend 80% of it on their kids and 20% on themselves. Instead of increasing the budget, they will adjust where the money is going. And each child gets cheaper when you can use hand-me-downs.
When I was single and when I was married without kids, my diaper budget was $0. It increased with each child, forcing me to make cuts in other areas. Maybe it meant fewer dinners out or learning that home pedicures are less luxurious but more affordable. Now that my youngest twins are almost 5, our diaper budget is back to $0. Sounds like it’s time to schedule a pedicure.
The point is that families absorb new costs by adjusting others. That’s not to say that children don’t cost anything; my grocery bill would beg to differ. But these estimates are way off. The LendingTree report says “transportation costs” are $4,383 per year, which equals around $365 per month. An adult without children may not be spending her funds on a minivan, but she is just as likely to have a car payment.
The cost of raising kids is really what you make it. 
In a similar way, housing costs can become exorbitant if a family of seven opts to live in a six-bedroom house so everyone can have their own space. But if they’re like most of America, they use the high cost of real estate as another opportunity to humble themselves. My husband and I bought our first home, our three-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot starter home, one year after we married and before we had any children. Sixteen years and five kids later, we are still here in this little house. 
Our children share rooms with bunk beds and cram together on the couch so we can watch movies together. We all share a bathroom and stick to a shower schedule. Our rambling old van is not pretty, but it’s paid off. Our household income is nowhere near $400,000. I am not spending $150,000 per year ($30,000 times five kids) on these lovely little people I’m raising. Sunny Hostin would be flabbergasted.
Compared to a family with two children, the cost per child goes up if you only have one child (by 27%) and goes down per child (by 24%) once you have three or more, according to a Department of Agriculture <a href="https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/blog/cost-raising-child">report</a> in 2017. The report notes that this is because children can share bedrooms, clothing, and family responsibilities (fire the cleaning lady and assign some chores to your older kids!). Older children can babysit the younger ones. It’s interesting that this report hasn’t been updated in almost a decade.
Ultimately, it’s impossible to come up with a single number of what it costs to raise a child. The answer is, it depends. It depends on a family’s goals and values, on whether they buy their Nikes brand new or shop at thrift stores, on whether they’re an Aldi family or Whole Foods shoppers. It depends on whether or not one parent stays home with the kids to cut out the daycare fees. 
There are ways to save and spend at every income level, and children can be naturally absorbed into that by give and take in different areas. Children are not inherently expensive. For centuries people have been having far more kids with far less money and somehow making it work.
Isabel Brown was right. Our message to our children should be to have more kids than seems reasonable, before they feel ready. Not just because the future of humanity depends on it, but also because it’s worth every sacrifice.

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Elites Claim You Need Massive Income For Kids, But Parents Make One Key Trade-Off

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