It took 15 tries, but Kevin McCarthy finally secured the votes he needed to become the next House speaker on Friday night. But “The View” host Alyssa Farah Griffin is pretty sure that his tenure in the position will be the shortest “in history.”
To kick off the discussion on McCarthy during Monday’s Hot Topics, moderator Whoopi Goldberg tried to nip it in the bud. Playing back footage of the near-brawl between Alabama Republican Mike Rodgers and Matt Gaetz — which came after Gaetz torpedoed McCarthy’s 14th attempt — Whoopi posed the topic to her co-hosts very sarcastically.
“Given how this particular clown show has played out, do you have any hope — any hope at all — that they will actually do any business? Get any business done?” she asked. When her colleagues answered a resounding “no,” she jokingly moved on, saying “OK, next!”
Of course, the women did actually have a longer discussion on the topic. Host Sunny Hostin called the exchange “so uncivilized,” and noted that, for as much as “Republicans like to use identity politics” and “talk about thugs” often, “I saw a lot of thuggishness going on.”
Speaking more to McCarthy’s future specifically, the women reiterated their concerns over the concessions he made to the most far-right of his party in order to get the job, which included changing the number of votes needed to potentially unseat a sitting speaker.
Host Alyssa Farah Griffin was particularly interested in seeing that play out, recounting her memories of working in the House in 2015 when Mark Meadows issued the motion to vacate, to try to unseat then-Speaker John Boehner. Farah Griffin noted that, when that happened, Boehner went directly to Nancy Pelosi, who promised that the Democrats would vote for Boehner, in an effort to not “get a crazier further right speaker.”
As a result, Farah Griffin predicted that McCarthy will have the shortest run as speaker in the history of its existence.
“That goodwill existed. It does not with Kevin McCarthy,” Farah Griffin said. “After January 6, no Democrat is going to come to save him when his radical caucus comes against him. I think he’s going to be the shortest speaker in history and I think they’re going to struggle to keep the lights on. It’s so disappointing.”
You can watch the full segment from “The View” in the video above.
