Following her exit from NBC Sports to enter the political realm, Michele Tafoya is already speaking at major political events — including the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). And on Tuesday’s episode of “The View,” she explained exactly why she was there.
To kick off the morning’s “Hot Topics,” the panel of women discussed some of the things that were said at the event, with Whoopi Goldberg posing the question of whether the speakers at the event were “preaching to a conservative choir.” Since Tafoya spoke at the event, the panel turned to her.
“First of all, I’m a libertarian. I’m an independent,” Tafoya clarified, prompting Sunny Hostin to then question why she would be at a conservative event in the first place.
“Because my message is, I’ll talk to anyone,” Tafoya responded. “I will. And I’ll listen to anyone. I’m for more voices, not fewer voices. That’s number one. So I wanted to go say, ‘Listen, let’s take hate out of all of this right now.’”
Tafoya then noted that that “hate” comes from both sides of the political spectrum.
“Let’s be honest about it. All the evils of politics go in both directions, come from both sides. It’s true,” Tafoya said. “And I feel like there’s a huge group in the middle, of which I am part, that is being ignored, that our voices are getting drowned out by this end and this end and the in-between folks are being kind of told to shut up and listen, and pay attention, and not follow our own instincts.”
Joy Behar took issue with Tafoya’s characterization of both sides being extreme, arguing that “it seems to me that the extreme right is now the Republican Party. The extreme left is not the Democratic Party. It’s a little different.”
With that, Tafoya did not agree, prompting the women to debate the difference of the attendees at CPAC and the Republican party as a whole. You can watch the full segment from “The View” in the video above.