With Meghan McCain out of the picture, The View has been a relatively calm viewing experience punctuated with spirited debate. However, the daytime talk show ventured into contentious waters as members of the panel drew lines in the sand over a very surprising topic: Monica Lewinsky.
While discussing Impeachment: American Crime Story and HBO’s latest documentary on cancel culture, The View co-hosts Sara Haines and Sunny Hostin battled it over whether or not Lewinsky was a victim of cancel culture after her affair with President Bill Clinton became a nationwide scandal.
Despite Hostin stating that she agrees Clinton abused his power during the affair, as he did with Paula Jones, Hostin refused to see Lewinsky as a victim and even labeled her as part of the one percent. Via Mediaite:
Hostin later disputed that Lewinsky was ever canceled by the internet, pointing to the “consequences” one would face for “having an affair with the married president of the United States.”
The host pointed to Lewinsky’s past handbag line and her gig as host of reality dating show Mr. Personality.
“Now she is a producer of movies based on this affair — her life. I think her net worth is in the millions of dollars, she is part of the one percent!” Hostin added.
Haines pushed back and spelled out the case for why she believes Lewinsky was a victim and Clinton basically walked away scot-free even with the impeachment proceedings.
“You have a grown man, who is married, took vows, has loyalties and fidelities to a wife. He chose to be a dog, which we have forgiven for years,” Haines argued. “She was a girl who didn’t have a string of these types of things. She didn’t have a history of potential assaults or abuse of power — she was 22.”
Just to emphasize how intense the conversation over Lewinsky got, the ladies went commercial and then came back and still fought about it after the break. Although, as much as they disagreed, nobody called anyone a bitch or shouted the name of their father, so all around, a drastic improvement over The View arguments of yore.
You can see the entire segment-consuming Lewinsky debate below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udTILzkn45M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pXiGuPyChw
(Via Mediaite)