Sunny Hostin Schools Alyssa Farah Griffin on Reaganomics: 'You Know That' Doesn't Work!

After three days of playing nice with Alyssa Farah Griffin, who's reportedly been hired as The View's new conservative co-host, Sunny Hostin laid out the many problems with her Reagan-era economic argument.

Though Griffin praised Sen. Joe Manchin for being "reasonable" with his centrist policy demands, she questioned whether the $700 billion deal between Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, dubbed the "Inflation Reduction Act of 2022," will be effective.

"My concern is this: I think the White House and Senate Dems are being too cute by a half," she said, noting that declining economic strength could indicate a looming recession. "We've got this act, which they're calling the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 — I hope it does that. I'm not confident it will."

Griffin started to say that the bill "is raising taxes," but Joy Behar chimed in to say the hike would only affect corporations and the wealthy. "My fear, though, is on corporations — that trickles down to job growth," replied the conservative co-host.

"Corporations aren't putting the money back into their employees!" interrupted Hostin. "They're taking the profits, Alyssa, and they're pocketing it themselves! You know that."

"You know that! Reaganomics never works!" Hostin continued. "Republican economic policy never works, other than to make wealthy people richer!"

Hostin earned a round of applause from the audience, but Griffin wasn't deterred. "Respectfully, right now — my family is very middle class. [There are] groceries they can't afford, they're filling their gas tanks halfway," she said. "And not all of that is on Joe Biden, but the economy is not looking so good under Democrats right now."

"The one thing the Biden administration can point to as a success right now is low unemployment," Griffin continued. "I think this is going to lead to higher unemployment if you're taxing corporations."

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— The View (@TheView) July 28, 2022

After some more back and forth, Behar and Griffin shifted the discussion to provisions in the bill aimed at combatting climate change. "I'm a conservative environmentalist. We only get one shot at this Earth. My party is behind in investing in trying to counter climate change, investing in our futures. That is a huge issue," she said, at which point Hostin interrupted to say Republicans are behind "because they want to make money from fossil fuels."

Griffin ignored the dig altogether. "But I would say there's not just one way to address this," she said. "I also think we can't set aside the real pain that Americans are feeling. And I'm not convinced this is actually going to drive down inflation and consumer costs."

"Well, you may be one of the few Republican conservatives that actually are paying attention to what real people are going through," replied Whoopi Goldberg, in what may be the surest sign that Griffin has the panel's full approval. "You see it. You hear it. But it doesn't seem that anybody else in the party hears it."

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