Commentary Culture Investigations

Season 29 of ABC’s The View came ended last week amid an ongoing battle with the Federal Communications Commission over their purported status as a “bona fide news program,” which called into question their bias, their content, and their adherence to the so-called equal time rule for political candidates. Compared to a previous long-term study of The View’s guests, a new NewsBusters study discovered the number of guests to express a conservative political opinion more than doubled… to five, compared to the 87 guests to express a liberal one.”The View’s 87-5 guest ratio proves the show is not diverse at all. It’s a Democrat Socialist Party infomercial,” Media Research Center President David Bozell said.For the entire run of Season 29 (September 8, 2025 – July 24, 2026) The View interviewed a total of 321 guests. 

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Media Research Center

 Of the 87 liberal guests, 16 of them were Democratic politicians: former Senator Joe Manchin (WV), former Vice President Kamala Harris, two appearances by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani before and after he was elected, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senator Bernie Sanders (VT), Senator John Fetterman (PA), Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (TX), Congressman Jim Clyburn (SC), Governor Josh Shapiro (PA), Texas State House Member James Talarico, Governor Andy Beshear (KY), Senator Cory Booker (NJ), former politician Rahm Emanuel (IL), Senator Chris Murphy (CT), and former First Lady Jill Biden.The View also welcomed two of the liberal Supreme Court Justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, as well as former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.The show was also a gathering place for the liberal media elite: Jon Karl (ABC), Scott Galloway, Abby Phillip (CNN), Stephen A. Smith (ESPN), Ken Burns, Don Lemon, Martha Raddatz (ABC), Maggie Haberman (NYT), and Jonathan Swan (New York Times).Liberal comedians got a lot of love too: Hasan Minhaj (twice), Leslie Jones, Sarah Sherman, Matt Friend, Amber Ruffin, Taylor Tomlinson, Chelsea Handler, Ismael Loutfi, Kathy Griffin, and Wanda Sykes, to name a few.The left-wing of the Hollywood crowd was also well represented, here’s some of the more prominent names: America Ferrera, Henry Winkler, Ethan Hawke, Jamie Lee Curtis, Noah Schnapp, Morgan Freeman, Nathan Lane, Stephan Lang, LeVar Burton, Sigourney Weaver, RuPaul, and Molly Ringwald.Then there were the five conservative / right-leaning guests: Actress Cheryl Hines, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, Trump attorney Alina Habba, and Vice President J.D. Vance.As NewsBusters noted in our 2025 guest examination (which included the latter half of Season 28 and the first half of Season 29), the first two right-leaners come with asterisks next to their names. The first one wasn’t invited on until over a month into Season 29: actress Cheryl Hines. Despite being there to hawk her own book, Hines was married to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and having her on was a way for them to beat up on him via proxy. While having left-wing politics herself, she was forced to defend her husband’s – and by extension the Trump administration’s – policies, thus she was counted as right-leaning.The second conservative, was former Georgia Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was the first GOP politician who was then-currently in office The View had hosted since New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu was on in August 2024. As NewsBusters reported at the time, they only had Greene on because she was being a headache for Congressional Republican leadership during the government shutdown. The cast also tried to recruit her to become a Democrat.Greene made a total of three appearances in Season 29 (the most of any individual), but she was only counted as a right-winger in one of them. In her first appearance, she stuck up for the Trump administration as the cast tried to get her to turn on him.However, her second two appearances occurred after she had left office and was openly attacking Trump and Republicans in Congress. This meant she would be counted as a liberal since she was pushing their arguments against the right.Not included in the guest count total were the guest co-hosts who filled in for “conservative” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin while she was on maternity leave. They were excluded because they were on the show as co-hosts and not purely as guests.For the sake of completion, those women were Elisabeth Hasselbeck, Sara Eisen, Savannah Chrisley, Amanda Carpenter, Abby Huntsman (who whiffed when asked about her conservative values), comedian Sheryl Underwood (who would later fill in for Joy Behar), and comedian Whitney Cummings (who called herself a “life long progressive” and suggested President Trump was sending child soldiers to fight Iran).During the same show they grilled Hines, Behar claimed that Republicans wouldn’t go on the show because “they’re afraid of us.” This statement led to a slew of prominent conservative influencers, journalists (including NewsBusters), and politicians coming forward with evidence of the show either rejecting or ignoring their appearance requests (including people they had on previously).The View cast responded on their podcast by suggesting most conservatives didn’t live up to the “certain caliber of guest” they felt the show demanded, that they only wanted to speak to the people they talked about on the show.One of the notable conservatives they refused to have in Season 29 was The Daily Wire’s Isabel Brown, who they attacked and smeared because she had encouraged women to get married and have kids.Brown reached out to The View to see if they would allow a conversation with her on their show. They rejected her request and lied to her about being booked up for weeks, while they continued to attack and smear her.So much for wanting to speak with the people they talk about on the show. But The View had an answer to that too.Farah Griffin basically admitted they didn’t want guests who would actually push back, call them out, and embarrass them.ABC and The View did not respond to a request for comment.Methodology: For a guest to be counted as either liberal or conservative, they needed to express such views during their appearance on The View. If a celebrity did not discuss politics, they were not included in the count of political leanings even if they had a history of being outspoken in the past. For example, actor Robert De Niro had a history of speaking out against President Trump, but was not included in the liberal count because politics did not come up.

MS NOW’s The Last Word on SnapStream

Last Friday, President Donald Trump took to the stage at the postponed White House Correspondents’ Dinner, after an attempted assassination attempt. In his manifesto, that failed assassin used leftist media talking points to justify mass murder. Unfortunately, many of the people mentioned in Trump’s new WHCD speech couldn’t take a joke. That included MS NOW’s Lawrence O’Donnell, who derailed his opening monologue on Monday’s The Last Word to fight for (not against) Trump’s title for him: “The Dumbest Man on Television.”“On Friday night, Donald Trump put on a bow tie and went into a hotel ballroom full of people to talk to himself,” O’Donnell began. “No one else was listening.”  Immediately after, he said that Trump’s “hour-long speech, which I did not watch, and would not watch, but heard about from reporters soon afterward, was yet another demonstration of just how far gone Donald Trump is.”So, clearly those other reporters listened, otherwise they couldn’t have made that opinion.That line also perfectly sums up the elitist media. They don’t watch or listen to what actually happened; they just repeat one another. And any assertions that O’Donnell makes about Trump’s speech are, by his own admission, based on practically nothing.Narcissistic O’Donnell only watched when Trump mentioned him and Don Lemon:TRUMP: And, Lawrence O’Donnell, never liked him, never thought he had any talent. But he’s still making a living, so I can’t knock it. But we had a contest for who had the lowest ratings and the lowest IQ on television, and that was actually Don Lemon, I think.Calling someone talentless (which happens to be true in O’Donnell’s case) isn’t a harsh insult, especially by Trump’s standards. He could have called him a brainless, demented scarecrow, but he didn’t. But O’Donnell took bigger issue with Trump’s Lemon comment, because apparently he wants to be the dumbest man on television:O’DONNELL: Donald Trump called me the dumbest man on television years before he ever aimed that insult at Don Lemon. And when he did, Don Lemon and I were both on television. So that functions as a, sort of, Trumpian proof that Don Lemon can’t possibly have ever been the dumbest man on television if I already was.O’Donnell essentially said he deserved to be the dumbest because Trump called him that before Lemon, “Donald Trump called me the dumbest man on television in early 2012 when I was calling him a liar every time he opened his mouth about President Obama’s birth certificate.”Calm down, boys, you can both be tied for the dumbest. Trump probably wouldn’t mind splitting that title between you two.The transcript is below. Click “expand” to read:MS NOW’s The Last Word 7/27/2610:13:13 p.m. Eastern LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: On Friday night, Donald Trump put on a bow tie and went into a hotel ballroom full of people to talk to himself. No one else was listening.  Instead of spending the time either explaining his war to an audience of reporters at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner or something else, Donald Trump spent the evening watching reporters win awards for reporting exposure of his incompetence and/or his corruption.  His hour-long speech, which I did not watch, and would not watch, but heard about from reporters soon afterward, was yet another demonstration of just how far gone Donald Trump is.  Here is a piece of the speech that I did watch this afternoon. It’s the only piece that I watched. It’s a typical, inexplicable passage of what was on the mind of the man who cannot figure out how to end the war he started.[Cut to video]DONALD TRUMP: And we had a, sort of, little preview. And then Anderson Cooper is going to fight Lawrence O’Donnell, not a – I’m not a fan of Lawrence O’Donnell.  I like Anderson, actually, because he’s covered me well for many years. And he went bad as soon as I went for politics. But for years, he loved interviews. I did so many interviews with him and he was great. But, you know, he’s got a little different persuasion than me in many ways, actually.  And Lawrence O’Donnell, never liked him, never thought he had any talent. But he’s still making a living, so I can’t knock it.  But we had a contest for who had the lowest ratings and the lowest IQ on television, and that was actually Don Lemon, I think. You know, when I said that he’s the dumbest man on television, I said, “you know, when you say some things, you never make a comeback.” It’s not like, “Oh, gee, hey, Don, let’s have dinner some night..” But I know what I’m saying.[Cut back to live]O’DONNELL: “I know what I’m saying.” He’s in the middle of waging a war, and that’s what he’s saying. I know what he’s saying – “I know what I’m saying,” he said. If he does know what he’s saying, he’s the only person who knows what he is saying. No one has any idea what he meant in that passage or any other passage in that speech. The Iranians he is waging war against don’t know what he’s saying. They don’t understand a word he’s saying because no one does.  No one in that room Friday night knew what he was saying, and he definitely doesn’t know what he has actually said, including about me or Don Lemon.  Donald Trump called me the dumbest man on television years before he ever aimed that insult at Don Lemon. And when he did, Don Lemon and I were both on television. So that functions as a, sort of, Trumpian proof that Don Lemon can’t possibly have ever been the dumbest man on television if I already was.  Donald Trump called me the dumbest man on television in early 2012 when I was calling him a liar every time he opened his mouth about President Obama’s birth certificate. That was the foundational lie of Donald Trump’s political career. That’s what launched Donald Trump: public racist hatred of Barack Obama. That’s what gave him his start, his ignition in Republican Party politics. 

Comedy Central’s The Daily Show asked the age-old philosophical question “If you can’t believe a man in a chicken suit then who can you trust?” on Tuesday as host-of-the-week Jordan Klepper showed some previously unaired footage from his trip to Portland, Oregon’s anti-Trump and anti-ICE protests that in addition to animal costumes featured plenty of nudity. According to the guy in the chicken costume that Klepper wants us to take seriously, “fascism is happening.”The whole point of Klepper’s visit was to seek to disprove the idea that Portland was overrun by Antifa, “Turns out this was a naked protest against Trump’s immigration crackdown, and joining the lefty nudists were frightening farm animals.” The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper played more of his man on the street field trip to Portland’s “naked protest against Trump immigration crackdown” and found one non-naked man a chicken costume to say “Like, fascism is happening. It is not coming it is here. A lot of us have just… pic.twitter.com/HCcQkT3rX1— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 29, 2026 As Klepper was speaking, B-roll footage of protesters in various stages of undress had various messages, such as “fascism is for cucks” written over themselves.Klepper asked one protester who was not naked, “So, as someone who was an early adopter to chicken costumes, what other cosplay are you impressed by?”The performative poultry replied, “The toad and the frog… That has been an incredible symbol. I think that one has caught on in a way that is really sustainable.”After Klepper asked him to elaborate, the ridiculous rooster then added, “Well, I don’t know how intentional everything was with that or with this, but frogs work so well as an analogy right now. The frog’s in boiling water. That is what we are as America in this moment. Like, fascism is happening. It is not coming. It’s here. And a lot of us have just been ignoring it as the temperature gets turned up.”At times Klepper could find the absurdity of a naked protest or of dressing oneself in an animal costume, but the point of the trip was to mock Trump and his supporters because Klepper agrees with the protestors. By suggesting protests with nudity and chicken costumes can’t be violent, and all Klepper had to do was ignore examples that contradict his narrative.Here is a transcript for the July 28 show:Comedy Central The Daily Show7/28/202611:11 PM ETJORDAN KLEPPER: Turns out this was a naked protest against Trump’s immigration crackdown, and joining the lefty nudists were frightening farm animals. So, as someone who was an early adopter to chicken costumes, what other cosplay are you impressed by?MAN: The toad and the frog.KLEPPER: Going to give me an Antifa hug?MAN: That has been an incredible symbol. I think that one has caught on in a way that is really sustainable.KLEPPER: What do you mean by that?MAN: Well, I don’t know how intentional everything was with that or with this, but frogs work so well as an analogy right now. The frog’s in boiling water. That is what we are as America in this moment. Like, fascism is happening. It is not coming. It’s here. And a lot of us have just been ignoring it as the temperature gets turned up.KLEPPER: Do you think the frog understood symbolism or just got super stoned and said, “I’m [bleep] wearing this?”MAN: Can it be both?

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