The View Hosts Can Barely Hide Their Disdain for Lauren Wright

After two days of tension, it's safe to say that conservative commentator Lauren Wright isn't getting the stamp of approval from The View's co-hosts. In her second and final day at the table, Wright, a political science lecturer at Princeton, spent 30 full minutes at odds with Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Sara Haines, who seemed exasperated by her conservative talking points and selective use of facts. Though the ladies never mentioned Meghan McCain by name, Wright seemed to be giving them déjà vu, as Behar muttered under her breath at one point, "Oh god, if I hear that again."

For the second day in a row, Wright quickly clashed with the co-hosts during a discussion about lifting COVID restrictions, though she used her few minutes to rail against the Biden administration's "inconsistent" policies and the "left wing" CDC. "Tell me how it's science for the CDC to make behavioral and social recommendations," she said. "They get tough questions about, 'Why do you have inconsistent messaging? How is it science when I sit at a restaurant and I'm breathing and I can take it off, and then I have to put it on when I'm in the bathroom?' ... It's political because taking into account assumptions about human behavior, which sometimes epidemiologists are not very good at making. It's not consistently applied. It's really treating people like children."

"One of the things that everyone's forgetting is that we knew nothing about this," replied Whoopi. In a likely reference to McCain, the longtime moderator continued, "We had somebody here who used to get very upset with people who said you should be wearing a different kind of mask, or you shouldn't be wearing a mask. They didn't know! So I can give them that."

After Wright advocated for eliminating federal mandates — "We can be smart, capable adults about this," she said — she did exactly what Whoopi just cautioned her not to do. "This whole thing started, by the way, with Dr. Fauci saying, 'Masks don't really work, we don't really need them," said Wright, as the entire table protested.

"The truth of the matter is nobody knew what this was," Whoopi reiterated (to which Wright insisted "he did"). "Fauci said, 'Listen, this is what I recommend.' He didn't say, 'You've gotta do this.' He said, 'This is what I'm recommending for what I'm seeing.' That I appreciate."

CDC EXPECTED TO RELAX MASK MANDATES: With the CDC expected to issue new indoor mask guidance as early as next week, #TheView co-hosts and guest co-host @drlaurenawright discuss the messaging and question how schools should handle masking. pic.twitter.com/KvMPfu9fi0

— The View (@TheView) February 17, 2022

Things only got more uncomfortable in the next segment, a Hot Topic about a video of police appearing to discriminate against a Black teen while breaking up a fight in a New Jersey mall. Wright opened her monologue by agreeing that the video is "a clear example of racial bias," but then once again returned to her "Democrats are at fault, too" talking points. "In the summer of 2020, when we had the best chance after George Floyd died, we had the very best chance in Congress, and Democrats used the filibuster to block Tim Scott's police reform bill," she said.

"That's only after Republicans had already blocked the reform bill put up by the Democrats," replied Hostin. "That's only after. That's not chronological order."

Wright then pivoted to "Defund the Police," saying, "Estimates are that white liberals are more supportive of 'Defund the Police' than African-Americans." The guest co-host was immediately met with resistance from Whoopi and Behar, who asked her to provide some kind of citation for her remark. "Do you have a statistic on that? Do you have an actual number?" asked Behar.

"No, white Democrats —" said Wright. "I'm a white Democrat," replied Behar. "I don't believe in defunding the police."

"Okay, well I'm not talking about you, unless you took the survey with thousands of people in it," said Wright. "I'm just saying that these are not based in real neighborhoods and real experiences where people are experiencing these things."

RACIAL BIAS TO BLAME FOR POLICE TACKLING BLACK TEEN? After a video of police responding to a fight between two teenagers in New Jersey drew outrage and prompted an internal investigation over the officer’s apparent treatment of the Black teenager, #TheView reacts. pic.twitter.com/Uq2W7t93wk

— The View (@TheView) February 17, 2022

With a comment like that, it's hard not to get McCain-a vu...

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