‘The View’ Hosts React to Trump’s Latest Dig at Them: ‘Rent Free’

Joy Behar and Ana Navarro
ABC

On Friday’s (October 18) new live episode, the hosts of The View had a lot to say about Donald Trump‘s appearance at Thursday’s Al Smith dinner in New York. The annual event is a fundraiser by the Catholic Church that raises money for children in need, and Trump was a featured speaker. 

About that, Joy Behar joked, “I’ve got a good one: A felon, a liar, and a traitor walk into a Catholic event. That’s the joke!”

After she and the other panelists debated the wisdom and appropriateness of having Trump at the event, given his indictments and alleged indiscretions, they also discussed whether it was enough for Kamala Harris to submit a recorded video while she kept on the campaign trail. After a commercial break, they then turned to the specific comments he made about The View during his address.

Calling it a “stupid show,” Trump said in the clip they reviewed. “The View is so bad now that the other day I was watching, thinking to myself, ‘You know what?’ They really need to bring Rosie O’Donnell back … The show is bad. The people are bad. I know every one of them, I want to tell you, and it doesn’t do very well. I always like to say ratings are very important, when they don’t do well, it doesn’t do very well.” 

Ana Navarro immediately explained that, contrary to his insinuation, she never actually met Trump, insisting, “I gotta tell you, I’ve lived 52 years. I’ve lived 44 years in this country. I have never shaken that hand. I’ve never given him a kiss. I’ve never watched his show. I’ve never bought any of his product. And I never voted for him.”

“The interesting thing is, I have seen him and he has seen me, so we have met because I was covering his trial,” Sunny Hostin clarified. 

“He watches our show, too,” Alyssa Farah Griffin noted. “Also, I would just let you know we are number one in daytime over the last four years, so the ratings are fine, but this also cracked me up, because … he apparently came after me on a podcast and said he didn’t know me, he never met me, despite that I worked for him. And then now he’s saying he knows me, which gets back to my point. I think he’s slowing down.”

“Isn’t it in such an enjoyable thing to live rent-free in his head?” Hostin then said with a smile. “I mean, we live rent-free in this man’s head. I enjoy it. I enjoy it, and I enjoy that he has admitted three or four times now that he watches the show. Thank you! Thank you, Donald!”

The View, weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC