Alyssa Farah Stands Up to Joy Behar During a Brutal Cross-Examination

Guest co-host Alyssa Farah has once again proven she's the frontrunner to replace Meghan McCain as The View's conservative voice. On Tuesday morning, Farah stood up to Joy Behar during a cross-examination about Trump's COVID response, of which she played a key role as his communications director. As Behar grilled her about Trump politicizing masks and the vaccine, the ex-Trump official calmly walked the fine line between criticizing Republicans and praising the previous administration's Operation Warp Speed.

The View's COVID discussion began as a Hot Topic about former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who is seriously considering a political comeback after he resigned in disgrace last summer (Attorney General Letitia James' investigation found that Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women; he has repeatedly denied the allegations). "Men in power abusing power to pursue their sexual desires is party-agnostic. Republicans have done it, Democrats have," said Farah. "But the problem with Cuomo is not just these very credible accusations against him ... he also did an abominable handling of COVID. 10,000 senior citizens died in nursing homes in New York while he was writing a book that he profited off of."

Farah's remark kicked off a larger discussion about Cuomo's COVID response versus Trump's, during which Behar vociferously defended the former governor. "Besides Obama, almost every politician has some kind of luggage," said Behar, as Ana Navarro and Sara Haines argued that there's "too much toxicity" around Cuomo for any kind of political return.

When Farah again dinged Cuomo's "egomaniacal" decision to write a book about the early days of the pandemic, Behar interrupted with a simple question. "Do you blame him as much as you blame Republicans, or not?" she said.

"I blame many Republicans, too," replied Farah, as Navarro and Sunny Hostin chimed in with questions about whether she blames Trump and Pence, specifically, for politicizing the virus. "I certainly think that there's much Trump deserves blame for early on in the pandemic."

ANDREW CUOMO PLANNING POLITICAL COMEBACK? Five months after New York Gov. Cuomo resigned after sexual harassment allegations, all of which he has denied, there are reports he could be eyeing a run for office again — #TheView co-hosts and guest co-host @Alyssafarah discuss. pic.twitter.com/kyt32rdhOV

— The View (@TheView) February 8, 2022

"What did he do right, in your opinion?" fired back Behar. "Operation Warp Speed. Getting the vaccine to market," replied the guest co-host. "But then he didn't go on TV and say, 'Hey, go get vaccinated! Get boosted!' He's saying it now — and he politicized masks, which was the easiest early intervention we had. Those were the biggest failures on our end."

Behar continued to pepper her with questions — including "What president wouldn't have encouraged Operation Warp Speed?" — but Farah remained collected. "The one thing I want to say is this is a perfectly novel virus. We've now had more deaths under Joe Biden than President Trump, and I don't blame Joe Biden for that," she said. "We're combatting an evolving, novel virus."

Of course, Behar wanted to get in one final word before throwing the show to commercial. "People don't wear masks, they won't get vaccinated, and then they blame him for not fixing it!" said the longtime co-host. "It's ridiculous."

Farah's try-out continues on Wednesday and Thursday, so viewers have yet to see the last of her. How will she fare on Days Two and Three? Stay tuned!"

Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.