UPBEAT ‘VIEW’
Cast confident of success in 22nd season
In its 22nd season, “The View” doesn’t plan to change much. It doesn’t have to, the cast insists.
On Tuesday, the first show back from hiatus, co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin and newcomer Abby Huntsman spent a full half hour on funerals: those of John McCain, the late Arizona senator and father of fifth cohost Meghan McCain, and Aretha Franklin. Then they jumped to discussion of Colin Kaepernick and his new Nike promotion. Then Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the foursome to discuss her two new books — but not Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing.
In any other year, in any other environment, it would be exhausting. But in 2018, “The View” has to figure out how to handle it all.
Huntsman, who joins “The View” after leaving “Fox & Friends Weekend,” has been presented as the show’s second conservativeleanng host, but she doesn’t like that description.
“I don’t describe myself as being conservative . . . . I’m just me. That might mean that I’m liberal on some things and more conservative on, say, Colin Kaepernick,” Huntsman, the 32year-old daughter of former Utah Gov. and current Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman, told the Daily News on Tuesday, shortly after the first episode of the new season wrapped.
“I think I represent a lot of people today that aren’t identified by one title or the other. You’re sort of in a gray area of, ‘I’m going to take the issues that come and I’m going to figure out how I feel about it.’ You don’t always have to fall in a box.”
With Meghan McCain absent, Huntsman found herself alone for most of Tuesday’s show, between discussions of Kaepernick’s protests of police brutality and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s presence at John McCain’s funeral. But she said her transition to “The View” is more than just about politics. In fact, she said she’s a little tired of talking about politics.
“For me, I’m really excited about entertainment, talking about pop culture, in a way that you don’t get to on cable news,” she told The News.
She won’t get much of a break, though; former Secretary of State John Kerry is set to appear on the show Wednesday, followed by Lanny Davis, Michael Cohen’s personal attorney, on Thursday. Next week, ABC brings in Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). It’s a sign of the times. Everything is political.
“You’re giving voice to other people’s concerns,” Hostin, the former lawyer who joined “The View” in 2016, told The News, saying that she feels “energized” by the important topics she and her co-hosts take on every morning. “If you disengage from these topics, you disengage from the world.”
Behar, entering her 20th season at “The View,” has never shied away from her passion, which brings a fire to the daily show but has also gotten her into trouble before; in 2013, she either left or was fired — depending on who you ask — before returning two years later. She doesn’t seem to care about celebrating the momentous anniversary as much as the network does. She just wants to keep doing what she’s done for 20 years.
“I have my position and I just say my position. I have no interest in changing it to suit anybody,” Behar, who said she’s considering wearing a “resist and persist” pin on her outfit, told The News. “That’s why Meghan and I get along so well: we’re both very direct and strong in our positions, and we both mean it. We’re not kidding.”
The cast and crew recognize that the onslaught of politics on a women-led daytime talk show stands out, but they also realize that’s what their viewers want. That’s why “The View” has lasted.
“We care even more now,” executive producer Candi Carter told The News, “because the stakes are higher.”