Ana Navarro: The GOP is 'Broken to the Core,' But We Still Need 'Two Functioning Parties'

With Meghan McCain's seat still empty, guest co-host Ana Navarro has become The View's de-facto conservative voice, but she was more than willing to ding her own party for its refusal to hold Rep. Paul Gosar accountable for sharing a video depicting violence against President Biden and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Though she stopped short of calling for an end to the GOP, Navarro insisted that the Republican reaction to the controversy shows that her party is "broken to the core" in the wake of the Trump era. "It is what Trump has unleashed — this ugly underbelly that he has legitimized and empowered," said Navarro.

"I've been a Republican my whole life," Navarro said on Thursday morning, during a discussion about the House voting to censure Gosar and strip him from his committee assignments over the video (only two Republicans joined House Democrats on the vote). "Yesterday, I was really perturbed, I was really saddened. Because I really do believe that we need two functioning parties in this country."

Navarro noted that Gosar compared himself to Alexander Hamilton in an unrepentant speech on the House floor, saying, "If you're going to compare yourself to anybody, compare yourself to Archie Bunker." The joke earned her a laugh from the audience and even prompted a response from Joy Behar, who said she was being too kind of Gosar, as "Archie Bunker was not a neo-Nazi."

"Let me just get through this, though, because I couldn't sleep last night, I was so bothered," replied Navarro. The guest co-host proceeded to defend Ocasio-Cortez, who she insisted Republicans have made "a very sympathetic figure" with their "stalking" and non-stop attacks. "The question Republicans have to ask themselves is if it was a colleague of your mother, or your sister, or your wife, if it was a classmate of your daughter who was tweeting out an anime killing her, would you think it was just a joke to shrug your shoulders at?!"

REP. GOSAR CENSURED OVER VIOLENT VIDEO: After the House voted to censure Republican Rep. Paul Gosar and remove him from committee assignments over anime video depicting violence against Democrats, the co-hosts discuss if the censure will serve its purpose. https://t.co/ZVMxeM5SuW pic.twitter.com/sceZm6irNX

— The View (@TheView) November 18, 2021

When Sunny Hostin asked what Republicans should do about their "broken" party, Navarro insisted that "people who are sane Republicans who put country over cult" must "keep fighting" from within the party. "One of the problems is that almost all of the sane Republicans have either lost generals, lost primaries, retired, or died," she said.

"So, isn't it a lost party?" prodded Hostin. "We can't be a lost party because this is not Cuba!" replied Navarro, as Whoopi Goldberg agreed with her across the table. "We're not going to have a one-party system."

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