Joy Behar was shocked to find herself praising Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Nancy Mace for meeting with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, she said Tuesday.
The View hosts discussed MAGA’s reaction to the newly unearthed version of Donald Trump’s birthday note to Epstein, which allegedly shows his signature at the bottom. After playing a compilation of denials from across the conservative spectrum, most of which implied the note was either “fake” or not indicative of any wrongdoing on Trump’s part, the hosts tore into lawmakers.
“These senators and congressmen who support him and everything that he says, no matter what he does, they’re behind him. It’s unbelievable,” Behar said. “Whatever happened to, ‘If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck?’”
Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin pointed out that the birthday note was unlikely to “implicate him in any of Epstein’s crimes” on its own, but Behar insisted it should make a difference to “public opinion”—a shift she credits in part to some unexpected people.
“Wasn’t it sort of heartening to see Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert sticking up for these Epstein victims?” she asked her co-hosts. “I was happy to see that. It was like, I’m usually not on their side, but they were—they’re women and they care, good for them.”
More praise for the conservative women came from Sara Haines, who said, “I think those three people, it’s not a coincidence that they’re three firebrands because sometimes to break and be brave when no one else will, you need someone that’s either completely crazy—or super brave—or maybe it’s somewhere in between.”
Added Griffin, “In the case of Nancy Mace, she’s been open she’s a sexual assault survivor herself, and I think with that history, you cannot turn away once you you hear those stories. I think she feels a duty to say something.”
Mace was photographed leaving a meeting with victims of Epstein’s visibly distraught, later explaining on X, “As a recent survivor (not 2 years in), I had a very difficult time listening to their stories. Full blown panic attack. Sweating. Hyperventilating. Shaking. I can’t breathe.”
She added, “I feel the immense pain of how hard all victims are fighting for themselves because we know absolutely no one will fight for us. GOD BLESS ALL SURVIVORS.”
All three women broke with MAGA on its mission to move on from Epstein. Rep. Greene even begged Trump to meet with the victims himself.
Boebert joined Greene and Mace in backing Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s bipartisan-supported Epstein Files Transparency Act, which, if passed, would require the Department of Justice to release all of the Epstein files. The act would need two more Republican votes to pass, assuming all 212 Democrats sign it—but most have backed Trump’s efforts to make the case away.
“If you’re Trump and you did nothing wrong in your association with Jeffrey Epstein, shouldn’t you also want maximum transparency?” Griffin, who worked in Trump’s first administration before joining The View, asked. “You should say, ‘Release it all.’”
Goldberg concluded the segment, “We’re not going to connect on a lot of political things together—but on this, we can connect.”
