Always take those "sources familiar with the situation" stories with a grain of salt the size of a lakeside cottage, but when one emerges that "The View" host Sunny Hostin might be on her way out, you've got to look at recent events before dismissing it out of hand.
So let's do just that because, man, Hostin has a lot of comically good reasons to have all her personal stuff put in a little cardboard box before the big security guy escorts her to the door.
"The View" might not have had a more revealing day than Friday, Nov. 22, when the hosts were forced to read no fewer than four on-air legal notices — three of them by Hostin. If NBC decided to reboot "The Office" but change the setting to a news-talk TV show hosted by women, the writers likely couldn't come up with anything funnier than what happened for real that day.
After a segment in which "The View" ladies discussed raunchy and unfounded allegations against Matt Gaetz — then President-elect Donald Trump's pick for attorney general — SecDef-designee Pete Hegseth, and former GOP congresscritter George Santos, ABC's legal team quickly leaped into action. They prompted Joy Behar (by iPhone message!) to read "a clarification" involving the garbage she'd spewed about Santos.
“I have a legal note,” Hostin said minutes later. “Matt Gaetz has long denied all allegations and has not been charged with any crime.”
“Also, another legal note,” Hostin continued. “Pete Hegseth’s lawyer said he paid [his assault accuser] in 2023 to head off the threat of a baseless lawsuit. He has denied any wrongdoing. “
Several minutes later, Hostin — a onetime prosecutor — issued a fourth legal disclaimer pertaining to Pam Bondi, Trump’s new nominee for attorney general.
“I’m sorry everyone, I have another legal note,” Hostin told the audience, to which Behar could be heard groaning, “Oh my God.”
“'The View' doesn’t want anyone to sue," is how the New York Post succinctly put it, which is why ABC's legal team has the hosts on speed dial to issue on-air corrections in real-time.
You can't make this stuff up.
The situation got so bad for Hostin and "The View" that Coming Soon's Disheeta Maheshwari felt the need to write one of those denial stories: "No, Sunny Hostin Has Not Been Fired From The View." While anyone concerned could, you know, turn on the show and see her there, readers were still treated to Maheshwari's reassurance that "Sunny Hostin has not been fired from 'The View,' despite the rumors circulating following a recent on-air incident."
Something that isn't often appreciated — maybe because it seems almost impossible — is that "The View" is produced by ABC's news division. That means it falls under the same ABC News standards and practices as their nightly news program. That's why ABC's lawyers required Hostin to read all those humiliating* on-air corrections. There's a lot of ruin in a news network, as ABC has been happy to prove during its decades-long decline into near-oblivion. But they don't need a bunch of well-founded lawsuits to hurry the process along into total oblivion.
(*Humiliating for her and for ABC News. Comedy gold for you and me, gentle reader.)
Hostin has had to read no fewer than seven on-air corrections and legal notes in the last few months. Can you imagine screwing up that badly at your job and still keeping it? Yet that's exactly the situation Hostin enjoys with ABC News and "The View."
It must be nice. What isn't so nice is that "sources familiar with the situation" say Hostin might be on her way out but that the people actually responsible for making it happen can't seem to make the call.
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