“The View” co-host Ana Navarro said Wednesday that it would be a “mistake” to not take former President Donald Trump “seriously” after he announced Tuesday night that he is running for president in 2024.
The panel responded to Trump’s launch event at Mar-a-Lago, with Navarro saying she and other Republicans made “the mistake” of not taking Trump “seriously” during his first presidential campaign in 2016.
“I made the mistake — and many other Republicans made the mistake — in 2016 of not taking Trump seriously. I’m not making that mistake twice. I got to tell you all, don’t get numb to it, don’t laugh about it, don’t get tired of it. We beat him once, we can beat him twice if we have to. Because he belongs in the Big House, not the White House, and under no circumstance can Americans get exhausted and not fight hard as hell so this guy is nowhere near the presidency ever, ever, ever again,” she said, followed by an eruption of applause and cheers of “Yeah! Yeah!” from co-host Joy Behar.
Co-host Sunny Hostin said the “word on the street” is that Trump has between 30 and 90 days before he is indicted by the Justice Department and called on the media to ignore Trump or decrease their coverage of him. Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin raised the possibility that he is running to avoid an indictment. (RELATED: ‘Release The Letter, Alyssa’: Trump Calls For Alyssa Farah Griffin To Be Fired From ‘The View’)
“The media made him more and more and more and more famous,” Hostin said. “I think we can make this twice-impeached, disgraced, almost-indicted former president, perhaps a criminal — we can pay attention to the ‘criminal’ if he’s indicted, but let’s not pay so much attention to this guy trying to grift and make money off the presidency.”
The possible indictment would be in connection to the more than 300 classified documents the FBI seized from Mar-a-Lago in August. The DOJ later released a highly redacted affidavit claiming that 14 boxes from Mar-a-Lago had classification markings and contained 184 documents – 25 of the documents had “top secret” markings, 92 were labeled “secret” and 67 had a “confidential” warning.
Griffin said the Republican Party needs to prioritize putting resources into a different candidate capable of defeating Trump in the primary in order to “bring him down once and for all.” She also said Republicans are going to flee from the former president and create a “winning coalition” to oppose him.
Co-host Sara Haines said that Trump-endorsed candidates’ losses in the midterm elections prove that the former president could lose the Republican primary. Notable GOP losses included Pennsylvania Senate candidate Mehmet Oz, Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters and Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.
Trump also saw a handful of victories for his endorsed candidates, notably Ohio Senator-elect J.D. Vance. Trump-endorsed former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders won her gubernatorial bid in Arkansas, the first woman to do so.
The former president has repeatedly celebrated the results of the midterm elections despite Republicans’ underperformance.
