The View is heating up its hot topics by bringing back some familiar faces during host Alyssa Farah Griffin’s maternity leave.
The former Trump aide will be replaced by rotating guest hosts and show alums Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Abby Huntsman, per Deadline. Savannah Chrisley, the daughter of reality TV personalities Todd and Julie Chrisley, is also set to scrub in, despite the hosts’ less-than-pleased reactions on-air about Trump’s pardoning of her parents’ bank fraud and tax evasion charges.
Other co-hosts on rotation will include Amanda Carpenter, Sheryl Underwood, and Whitney Cummings.
Chrisley will be the first guest host in the rotation, with her appearance on the show starting Feb. 17, The View producer Brian Teta told Deadline on Wednesday. “They are big shoes to fill,” he told the site, as he explained that the guest choices were “all about a different point of view at the table,” and “who are good at this job or who have the potential to be good at this job”—not just politics.
But the show’s political discussions will likely be more heated than usual, particularly considering Hasslebeck and Huntsman’s previous tenures on the show.
Hasslebeck was a permanent co-host from November 2003 to July 10, 2013, and was known for her polarizing right-wing views—including the time she shamed women who access abortions in 2022, and her multiple on-air clashes with Rosie O’Donnell.
Last January, she declared the show a “sinking” ship after Joy Behar criticized Carrie Underwood for performing at Donald Trump’s inauguration. The show has “refused to put anyone there who has a lick of sense on most days,” she also told Fox News at the time.
Huntsman left The View in 2020, after two years on the show. In 2021, she cited a “toxic workplace” as the real reason for her exit, though she’d publicly stated that she left to work for her father, Jon Huntsman’s, gubernatorial campaign at the time. The environment on the show was “all about money and the tabloids,” she said, declaring The View “did not reflect my values” and “rewarded people for bad behavior.” She did not name anyone specific when she made the accusations.
Chrisley helped arrange her parents’ prison releases with Trump’s help. She is “excited” to co-host the show for the first time, despite the hosts’ comments about her parents’ pardon, she said on her podcast, Unlocked with Savannah Chrisley.
Behar and Ana Navarro both slammed the move as “unethical” in May, with Behar adding, “According to this administration, if you’re a reality star with a lot of money and a tax cheat and you commit fraud, then that’s good — we’re going to give you a pardon.”
Chrisley addressed the comments last month, “I mean, these personalities have bashed my family, have bashed me,” she said. “These are the same women who made a comment to the extent of, ‘Wonder what she had to do for those pardons.’”
Griffin will vacate her seat for her controversial temporary replacements after her last day on the show next Friday, Feb. 13.
