Hillary Clinton Sidesteps Alyssa Farah Griffin's 'Deplorables' Trap on The View

Hillary and Chelsea Clinton may have stopped by The View Wednesday morning to promote their new Apple TV+ series Gutsy, but that didn't stop the co-hosts from getting their take on Hot Topics.

The Clintons weighed in on various issues, from the raid on Mar-a-Lago to President Biden's recent speech about the MAGA movement posing a threat to our democracy. As they're known to do, the duo kept their cool through it all — even when Alyssa Farah Griffin, The View's new conservative co-host, brought up Clinton's September 2016 "deplorables" speech.

"This past week, President Biden gave a speech on democracy and the threats to it," began Griffin. "As a Republican, I've been outspoken that I think it's one of the biggest issues facing our country. But I did worry that by using the language, saying many who support the former president are 'semi-fascist' or leaning towards it, was divisive."

"I know you experienced it when you used the term 'deplorables.' Quite a bit of backlash from the right," she continued, as Clinton looked on with a slight smile. "Do you think the president met the right tone, or do you think that this was divisive and could've been framed better?"

Ever the expert politician, Clinton sidestepped Griffin's question. "I think he did a very important service to the country in giving the speech that he gave," said the former secretary of state. "I'm not going to second guess the language he used because there has been do much that has gone beyond anything that I ever would have dreamed of, starting with January 6."

"The final thing I would say is, look, 'fascism' is a very big word. I know that," she said. "But so is 'socialism.' And the Republicans call every Democrat who wants people to have healthcare a 'socialist.'"

Clinton added that while "we do need to be careful with our language," the current Republican Party exhibits "the hallmarks of authoritarian regimes."

"My most fervent hope is that Republicans themselves will begin to reject all that, verbally, vocally, in their voting," Clinton continued. "And kind of reconstitute the Republican Party to where it used to be, and not the party of Trump, which I think is very dangerous to the country."

As for the classified documents seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, Clinton took a different tack than her laugh-out-loud moment on The Tonight Show Tuesday night.

"This should be taken really seriously. It's not a joking matter ... Those documents and the empty folders, as they were marked, suggest that there was really important, secret information that is essential to our country's defense and security," she said.

When Joy Behar asked if she thinks Trump will be indicted, Clinton wasn't sure. "I don't want to pre-judge," she said of the situation. "The key is what the facts and the evidence are, what the FBI and the intelligence community learn about these documents; how they ended up there; who else saw them?"

"No one is above the law," concluded Clinton. "The rule of law in a democracy has to be our standard. But we should not rush to judgement. We should take it seriously. We should be concerned about it. And we should follow the facts and the evidence."

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