The View’s “Hot Topics” segment was particularly heated on Monday, with several tense exchanges replete with shouting and eye-rolling over the question of whether Chuck Schumer’s decision to avert a government shutdown was “acquiescing” to Donald Trump and DOGE.
Co-hosts Sara Haines and former Trump aide Alyssa Farah Griffin defended Schumer’s choice, while Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro each had strong words for Schumer—and their opposing co-hosts.
“I actually agree,” Haines said, “a government shutdown never looks good on the party that seems to be the one that’s asking for it. The Dems had this option. I don’t see it as acquiescing. I don’t see it as anything.”
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Navarro pounced on Haines’ point. “I love you, but I don’t buy that explanation from you,” she said. “I think that when the Democratic base is hearing Chuck Schumer say, ‘The reason that I’m going to support this funding bill is because if not, it’s going to give Trump and Elon the power to fire federal workers and to get rid of departments’—they’re already doing that!”
Haines doubled down, explaining that she’d rather the Democrats halt DOGE “in the courts.” She then tried to ask Navarro, “So you don’t care about —” which only further antagonized the former Republican strategist.
“It doesn’t matter what I care about, it’s already happening!” Navarro shouted back at her, leaning forward in direction, as Haines averted her attention. “They’re doing that illegally or legally. They don’t care about the courts,” she also said.
Griffin weighed in on Haines’ side of the argument with her point that a government shutdown would “implement DOGE without having to have DOGE in place,” so Schumer did the “prudent, responsible thing.”
That’s when Hostin explained her opposing view that Schumer absolutely “caved.” She explained, “This was a fight that needed to happen, and it didn’t happen because of Chuck Schumer.”
Hostin added that “Republicans would have had to own that government shutdown,” since “they have control of everything, and it would have been squarely on their backs.” Instead, Hostin said, now Schumer has “cleared the way for Donald Trump and Elon Musk to gut social security, to cut Medicare, to cut Medicaid. That is unacceptable, and it is past time for Democrats to fight and stop acting like it’s business as usual!”
Right after Hostin’s impassioned speech, Griffin challenged her. “How would the government re-open?” after a shutdown, she asked, couching her earlier point that Senate Democrats would “have to make concessions” since they’re in the minority. Hostin didn’t answer the question, offering only, “Let the Republicans do what Republicans do.” Pressed further by Griffin on what that means, she said, “They’re destroying this country.”
Griffin ignored the comment and asked again, “But how would the government reopen?” to no further response from Hostin.
Navarro wrapped the most tense part of the segment by declaring that Democrats “don’t have the transactional callousness to let people feel the pain of a government shutdown” through missing benefits and furloughed jobs.
Hostin reiterated, “The Republicans are going to do it anyway.”
Navarro concluded that the parties are “cut from a different cloth,” as Whoopi Goldberg vowed to withhold her opinion until Schumer joins the hosts for Tuesday’s show. “I’m gonna wait,” she said. “When Chuck gets here tomorrow we can all say, ‘Hey! What the hell?’”
