Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me... Ana Navarro found herself alone at the table Friday morning when she insisted that Sen. Lindsey Graham will vote to confirm President Biden's Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson, despite issuing a statement suggesting exactly the opposite. "I haven't given up on Lindsey yet," said Navarro, the only self-identified Republican at the table. "Me and my island, there's room for Lindsey if he does the right thing on this."
On Friday, Graham issued a statement dismissing Jackson's nomination as proof that "the radical Left has won President Biden over yet again." As Friday moderator Joy Behar pointed out, the sentiment is at odds with Graham's vote to confirm Jackson to the U.S. Court of Appeals less than a year ago. "What changed?" she asked. "What changed with him?"
Navarro was first to chime in, though she refused to take Graham's Friday morning statement at face-value. "Lindsey voted for Sonia Sotomayor when many other Republicans didn't. Lindsey voted for Judge Brown when many other Republicans — only Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joined him, so it was a bipartisan vote," she said. "And Lindsey has talked in the past about how representation matters, and he thinks the Supreme Court should be representative. This is the first time in its 233-year history when there's going to be a Black woman."
"So if Lindsey really believes what he said he did — representation matters," continued Navarro, "Then he should put her through the strictest scrutiny, ask her all the relevant questions, see if she's got the qualifications and the judicial temperament, and if she does, get off his partisan [ass] and vote to confirm her."
BIDEN TO NOMINATE JUDGE KETANJI BROWN JACKSON FOR SCOTUS: After Pres. Biden kept his word on nominating a Black woman to the SCOTUS by choosing Judge Jackson – #TheView panel reacts to criticism from some members of the GOP such as Sen. Lindsey Graham. https://t.co/u7e9ZhkRFr pic.twitter.com/hGjuM4o4KD
— The View (@TheView) February 25, 2022
Suffice it to say the rest of the panel didn't agree with her. Hostin insisted that Graham's about-face on Jackson is "because of Trump," adding, "His lips are still surgically attached to Trump's butt."
"Does that mean he won't vote for her, that he's just saying what he thinks people want to hear?" asked OG moderator Meredith Vieira, who returned to The View as part of the show's season-long "Flashback Fridays" campaign.
"I think he's a wildcard, at this point," replied Hostin. "I don't think he can be counted on. I don't think he can be trusted."
Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.
TOPICS: Ana Navarro, ABC, The View, Joy Behar, Lindsey Graham, Meredith Vieira, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, politics