Ladies Who Punch

by Ramin Setoodeh

  Epilogue

  Trump’s View

  It was the night that Hillary Clinton was supposed to become the first woman president of the United States.

  Just a few minutes before the cameras rolled at The View for its election-night special, Joy Behar descended a spiral staircase from her dressing room to the set. She looked ashen as she fiddled with her note cards. “I’m worried,” she told me backstage about Donald Trump’s early surge. “He’s leading in Virginia right now. It’s tied in Florida. It’s close.” The polls had predicted an early night for Hillary. To commemorate the glass-ceiling-shattering milestone, the cohosts of The View had agreed to attend a boozy celebration. The Season 20 cast—with the exception of Whoopi Goldberg, who stayed home—migrated to Lifetime for a two-and-a-half-hour telecast to react to the vote totals, presumably ending with confetti. At 9:00 p.m. eastern time, as The View went live, many Democrats in America started to wonder whether the apocalypse was upon them.

  The atmosphere on the set was carefree at first. Candace Cameron Bure, the only cohost who had actually voted for Trump, eyed herself in a full-length mirror as an assistant administered a lint roller to her felt dress. The rest of the cast had undergone more changes: Sara Haines, a former pop culture correspondent on GMA, made small talk with Sunny Hostin, a legal expert from CNN, and Jedediah Bila, who served as the show’s Republican even though she was really a Libertarian.

  They were all awaiting Hillary’s acceptance speech. This would be sweet justice for The View, which had always envisioned a day when a female candidate would be elected to America’s highest office. The prophecy was embedded in the DNA of the show that Barbara Walters had created. “I probably thought there would be a woman president before a black president,” Barbara told me over lunch a few months before the election.

  That night, The View stage had been outfitted as if for a bachelorette party. A bar served vodka-infused cocktails with names such as Bad Hombre and Hillary’s Pantsuit Punch. Reality TV chef Rocco DiSpirito dispensed finger-food recipes (The Dip-plorables) between the show’s interviews with celebrities—former Miss Universe Alicia Machado, actress Vivica A. Fox—who had stumped for Clinton. A Trump impersonator was even lurking in the halls, frightening the guests. “I booked this show with the idea that Hillary would win,” said Todd Polkes, The View’s supervising talent producer.

  But instead, The View suddenly had to confront the possibility of another outcome. As Ohio and Florida went red, the show’s senior executive producer, Hilary Estey McLoughlin, who sat on a wooden stool in the control room, imagined how The View would look under a Trump presidency.

  In 2016, the show had taken a sharp turn toward politics, with some success. “Once the election started, I felt like we had our voice,” McLoughlin told me later. “It felt provocative and interesting, like the old show.” The View had stopped the bleeding in the ratings. Joy’s return was a welcome stabilizing force. Whoopi hadn’t quit yet despite her threats, and the show, even if it had lost its pull with big stars, still attracted major politicians such as Elizabeth Warren, Carly Fiorina, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, who in April had made another push to women voters prior to locking up the Democratic Party’s nomination. “I don’t think the vast majority of Americans, let’s hope, want to reward that kind of behavior and that sort of really hateful rhetoric,” she said about Trump.

  She was preaching to her base. On the night of November 8, 2016, when the audience warm-up guy, Tom Kelly, asked the crowd of spectators to cheer for Trump, the room went silent. The View stars took their seats, to the tune of Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration.” There couldn’t have been a less appropriate soundtrack for the hours that stretched ahead, distinguished by long faces on every network. Ten blocks south, Stephen Colbert was struggling to keep it together on CBS, with a special edition of The Late Show, during which he couldn’t mask his disdain for Trump. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow looked as if she’d seen a ghost. The streets of Manhattan were deserted. At the Javits Center, Hillary’s supporters were anxious and terrified. At the midtown Hilton Hotel, the Trump headquarters, his voters sounded more energized by the minute, waving a sea of MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN baseball caps and chanting “Lock her up!”

  Even as the odds of a Clinton presidency slipped away, it still felt within grasp at The View. Maybe that’s because the guests had been programmed to gush about Clinton, almost like a parallel universe where she was winning. Machado, a former beauty pageant winner attacked by Trump as “Miss Piggy,” talked about how hard she had fought to stop him. “I’m feeling peace,” she said backstage, sipping a Bad Hombre. “I’m doing what I need to do to share my story.”

  In one of the early segments, the ladies tossed to GMA cohost Robin Roberts at Hillary headquarters, who explained how the candidate had planned her victory speech under a glass-domed ceiling. Yet even this happy dispatch was interrupted by an omen. Joy had forgotten to turn off her cell phone, and although the viewers at home couldn’t hear it, the stage erupted in her ringtone, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” Seriously?

  As the night dragged on, the booze kept flowing. Sara downed more drinks than all the other cohosts combined. The crowd jeered every time a big state fell to Trump. “Don’t boo,” lectured the warm-up guy between breaks. “Try to be a little nicer.” Backstage, the actress Kathy Najimy silently whispered to no one in particular, “This is my last appearance in the United States.” The actor D. L. Hughley turned his interview into a call for action. “My daddy survived Jim Crow,” he said on TV. “I can survive Donald Trump.” The Trump impersonator especially couldn’t lift the mood. “How fun is this?” he blurted out onstage. “Now I’m winning and the nightmare is real.”

  As the final vote counts bled into the next day, the ladies needed to get off TV. They signed off at 11:30 p.m. With a Trump presidency now inevitable, Joy sped back upstairs to her dressing room and joined hands with the staff in a mock wake. “Somebody gave me a veil to put over my head, like somebody had died,” Joy said. “We were being funny. People in my office were crying. I was in shock. I thought he was going to lose.” In a few hours, Joy would be back on TV, already challenging the president-elect: “The only checks and balances we have are us, The View. That’s it! We’re going to stay right here and talk. I’m already on his enemy’s list.”

  For the past two years, without Barbara, The View had lost any relevance it once had. Now, Trump had given the ladies something to fight against, and a purpose. On the campaign trail, the president had vowed to protect jobs, and that promise was about to be tested, but not in the way he meant. It looked as if Trump, of all people, might save the rabble-rousing ladies of The View from cancellation.

  * * *

  “There’s a lot of range in our discussions,” McLoughlin told me one afternoon a few months into Trump’s presidency. Traditionally, The View had seen its ratings slide after an election year, no matter if a Republican or a Democrat had taken control of the White House. But in 2017, the show’s numbers, while still a fraction of what they were during Rosie’s or Whoopi’s best years, didn’t slip one bit. That’s because the Trump presidency led to another renaissance in The View’s Hot Topics, from his regular promises to build a wall to his alleged collusion with Russia to his daily attacks on the press, Hillary Clinton, people of color, immigrants, transgender Americans, James Comey, and more. “I don’t think women in daytime are exposed to this,” McLoughlin said, echoing what Bill Geddie had said about The View during Clinton’s impeachment. “I don’t think they are sitting around watching CNN all night. That makes us relevant. The transparency of the hosts is admirable. It’s not scripted; it’s not John Oliver or Samantha Bee. It’s visceral.”

  Despite suggesting that she was ready to leave, Whoopi has stuck with The View for now. When it seemed less certain that Whoopi would stay, ABC had explored as a backup plan bringing Meredith Vieira back as the moderator. But ABC didn’t need to follow through on that. One part of the show that
hasn’t gotten old: all the firings, which are more frequent than ever. The network cut Candace Cameron Bure loose in December 2016 because she knew even less than Raven about politics. Jedediah Bila was the next to go in September 2017 for agreeing with all the cohosts all the time.

  In Season 21, The View hired Meghan McCain, the daughter of Arizona senator John McCain, as the conservative voice. Meghan, who had just left Fox News as a commentator because of her father’s brain cancer diagnosis, wasn’t supposed to start until October. When a CNN reporter called Jedediah one September weekend to ask her if the rumor about Meghan replacing her was true, the secret was out. Jedediah refused to stay for one more month, packing up her office the next Monday. But at least she didn’t quit on TV, as Star Jones had.

  “I didn’t want to join, as you know,” Meghan told me one day in her dressing room, outfitted with a cactus and an American flag (we are close friends; she was my intern at Newsweek in the summer of 2006, and I later edited her columns at The Daily Beast). Meghan decided to pursue a career in media after her father’s 2008 campaign, during which she chronicled her life on the trail in a daily blog. She followed with on-air jobs at MSNBC and Pivot, and a cluster of appearances on The View. “I thought it looked like there was so much turnover,” Meghan said. “It wasn’t the iconic show I watched when I was in college. I originally said no when they asked me, and my dad convinced me to do it.”

  Senator McCain had always been fond of Whoopi—“They had worked together on AIDS research,” Meghan said—and he knew that she’d look out for his daughter. “When they offered me the job, I called her before I accepted. I asked her if she thought I could do this. It never gets old that she’s Whoopi Goldberg.”

  Meghan’s arrival at The View meant that the show had a Republican who was ready to push the buttons of the liberal cohosts—and the guests. “The core people have been here for a long time,” Meghan said about the staff. “It feels like you’re joining a new club that doesn’t want new members. That was the hardest part.” The 2017–18 season of The View scored its best ratings in four years, averaging 2.6 million viewers, with big moments such as Meghan challenging Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff for using off-the-record sources and clashing with House minority leader Nancy Pelosi about the future of the Democratic Party.

  The View generated headlines for its sit-downs with James Comey, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stormy Daniels, and Hillary Clinton (again), this time on her What Happened book tour. The cohosts routinely shone a light on the victims of sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein and other powerful Hollywood abusers. In some ways, it felt as if the current national discussion about women in Hollywood had caught up to what The View was always doing. “At the beginning of this season, #MeToo hadn’t started,” said Brian Teta, one of the two executive producers (with Candi Carter) who now controls the show. “We’re more relevant than we’ve ever been.” Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro got into an ugly View fight with Whoopi Goldberg about Trump’s policies. Pirro berated the cohosts during a commercial, calling them “cocksuckers” backstage, which made Whoopi tell her to get lost. The exchange dominated the cable news cycle that week in July.

  “If Trump wasn’t president, I don’t think I would be successful here,” said Meghan, who didn’t vote for Trump but understands why so many others did. “For that reason, I guess I’m grateful that Trump is president. It’s just made my job a little easier because I know why it happened.”

  But she doesn’t credit The View’s latest resurrection entirely to Trump. “That I don’t concede to,” said Meghan, who is thirty-four. “Everyone is, like, ‘Oh, you’re popular because of Trump.’ I think everyone is more interested in politics. Young women are different now than when I was younger. Everyone is involved, civically engaged, and informed. I think that’s also why the show is doing so well.”

  She has a theory about the secret behind her own success on the show. “I think the reason I worked and other Republicans didn’t is because I’m the first real Republican that they hired. Yes, I think I’m more of a Republican than Elisabeth is.” Meghan doesn’t intend that as a dig to Elisabeth. “I was born in this environment. I don’t want to be a Democrat. I think there were a lot of people they hired that are in the mushy middle, or they are Republicans who are ashamed of being Republicans—or they are intimidated. Nicolle Wallace changed parties,” Meghan said, meaning that Nicolle backed liberal viewpoints in the Hot Topics debates. “Candace Cameron was a social conservative. I don’t remember the other people who were on here.”

  In December 2017, Meghan had her biggest moment on The View with Joe Biden. The former vice president had come on TV to talk about his book about his son Beau, who died from the same aggressive brain cancer that John McCain eventually would. Meghan was having a hard time that morning because her dad was back in the hospital. “He had gotten pneumonia and he was very sick,” she said. When she welcomed Biden backstage, she started crying.

  On TV, she tried to ask him a question, and she choked up again. Without hesitating, Biden comforted her in a five-minute clip that went viral. “I couldn’t believe the amount of attention it got,” Meghan said. It was around the holidays, and she thinks that viewers wanted to see compassion. “We’re living in a time when Republicans and Democrats really hate each other. And I love him.” Since then, she’s regularly spoken to Biden. “I’m grateful that The View gave me this, because it has helped me a lot.”

  Given the show’s history, Meghan wasn’t sure if she’d make it to Season 22. “I hope it’s in my obituary that I was the first Republican since Elisabeth Hasselbeck to survive more than one season on The View. It’s one of my proudest moments. I thought I was getting fired for a long time.” She pointed to shelves of high heels in her dressing room, telling me that only one pair belonged to her. “The rest are owned by the show. If I get fired, I want to be able to leave here quickly.”

  In the summer of 2018, Ben Sherwood was axed by Bob Iger, who felt Sherwood wasn’t capable of running ABC’s TV networks. Even as he was losing all his power, Sherwood had never given up his dream of expanding GMA. Since he couldn’t get rid of The View, he canceled The Chew, the cooking show that aired at 1:00 p.m. in many markets. But that gave him a strange time slot to drop another edition of GMA. He recruited Sara Haines from The View to join Michael Strahan for a daytime program called GMA Day. As a result, The View had to throw another going-away party. The show made an overture to Elisabeth to see if she’d be interested in Sara’s seat, but she declined. Instead, The View added Fox News’s Abby Huntsman in September 2018.

  Joy and Meghan were in the makeup room on Sara’s last day, talking about how much they enjoyed debating each other. “I love sparring with her,” Meghan told me later, after the taping. “We’re like boxers; we punch gloves and then we’re out.” She quoted a line, attributed to Ted Kennedy, that her father liked to tell her: “A fight not joined is a fight not enjoyed.”

  * * *

  So when will The View end? Whoopi and Joy have indicated that they will likely stay on through at least 2020. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. These days, it’s hard enough to have a TV show last for a full season. At Disney, which owns ABC, the acquisition of 21st Century Fox means that new executives are in charge of The View, and it’s unclear what plans they have for the show.

  For many years, TV pundits tried to handicap who could become the next Oprah. Katie Couric flopped. Anderson Cooper was so cold and impersonal on his daytime talk show that he wouldn’t even come out to viewers. Even Meredith Vieira, the most real TV personality, failed to connect on her solo outing.

  Nobody will ever fill Oprah’s shoes because the talk show is in decline and viewer habits are more fractured. The shows that are creaking along were invented years ago. Kelly Ripa is still holding down her fort at Live—with Ryan Seacrest as her latest sidekick. Dr. Phil continues to dispense medical advice, and Ellen dances and hobnobs with celebrities. But daytime TV has no new leader because audiences ge
t their information through an assortment of different channels, and they are surrounded by competing voices all day long—especially on Twitter and social media.

  The argument could be made that, of all the options, one talk show has come the closest to replicating Oprah’s influence. In 2018, The View surpassed The Oprah Winfrey Show with more than forty-eight hundred episodes. It took a village of ladies to cross that finish line. When asked for her greatest career accomplishment, Barbara never wavered, once telling me, “What makes me feel good is when a young woman—it’s almost always a woman—says, ‘You influenced me and you’re the reason I became a journalist. They watched, and they said, ‘If she could do it, I could do it.’”

  Meet the View cohosts: Debbie, Star, Joy, Meredith, and Barbara, from the show’s 1997 press kit. Also pictured (from left) producers Roni Selig and Jessica Guff and executive producer Bill Geddie. Credit: ABC

  The ladies with their first victim—and guest—actor Tom Selleck on the premiere on August 11, 1997. Credit: © American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

  After the show, Barbara always held a post-mortem meeting with the staff. Credit: Bernadette Piccolomini

  On April Fool’s Day 1998, the cohosts faced off against their SNL doppelgangers: Molly Shannon (as Meredith), Tracy Morgan (as Star), and Cheri Oteri (as Barbara). Credit: © American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.

  Hillary Clinton made her first View visit on October 13, 2003. Credit: © American Broadcasting Companies, Inc.