Alyssa Farah Griffin engaged in a tense debate on this morning’s episode of The View, where she had to beg producers for more time to respond after Joy Behar told her she “[has] to vote for [Joe] Biden” in the 2024 presidential election.
During the first Hot Topics segment of the day, the ladies discussed Biden’s former Chief of Staff Ron Klain allegedly criticizing the president for talking too much about bridges and not enough about high grocery prices.
“He does two or three events a week where he’s cutting a ribbon on a bridge. And here’s a bridge,” Klain reportedly said, per The Hill. “Like I tell you, if you go into the grocery store, you go to the grocery store and, you know, eggs and milk are expensive, the fact that there’s a fucking bridge is not [inaudible].”
Griffin chimed in to defend Klain’s comments, noting that Americans are spending 11% of their income on food.
“There’s not one box he can check and suddenly grocery prices go down. That would be ridiculous to suggest,” she said. “But what [Biden is] being told by advisors is, ‘You need to speak to what people are feeling. You need to speak to this very real reality.” I make a lot of money. I put a red onion back because it was $4.99. That’s ridiculous.'”
But Whoopi Goldberg pushed back, insisting that Biden can only do so much at a time.
The longtime moderator also thought Klain was specifically talking about the Baltimore bridge that collapsed last month, but Griffin pointed out that he was “very clearly talking about the infrastructure projects which [Biden is] going around the country to tout.”
Behar then decided to jump into the conversation.
“People who are like you who say that you hate or can’t stand Trump, you have to vote for Biden,” she told Griffin, who did not seem happy with that piece of advice. When Goldberg and the producers attempted to end the segment and go to commercial right there, Griffin called out, “No, no, no. I get a chance to respond! I get a chance to respond.”
She then said, “[Biden] cannot be immune from criticism. I very well may get there but if we shut down any criticism of him and say we can’t raise issues of high grocery prices, you’re gonna lose a lot of moderates and independents.”
The ladies all continued to talk over each other, with Goldberg seemingly telling producers that she was “trying to let everybody talk.”
Behar then appeared to allude that there are much more “hideous and horrible” things on the Republican side to talk about, prompting Griffin to fire back, “I’m raising this because I don’t want Trump to win. [Biden] needs to get his message right.”
The View airs on weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.