Fondacaro's View: An Election Shoutdown
Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro was angry that the co-hosts of "The View" had opinions about the election and raged that they had Kamala Harris and Joe Biden as guests.
Media Research Center writer Nicholas Fondacaro’s pathological hatred of “The View” and its co-hosts — already pegging the meter as it is — went way off the charts during election season. ConWebWatch has already documented his meltdown over Kamala Harris appearing on the show, trashing the interview as “a gushfest from the beginning” despite it being no different in tone from interviews of Republican politicians on Fox News. On top of that, he raged over the show’s co-hosts praising Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Harris, as well as them having opinions on Donald Trump’s New York trial.
He did pretty much the same when President Biden paid a visit, huffing in a Sept. 25 post:
ABC’s The View proclaimed they made “history” on Wednesday by treating President Biden to a tongue bath of an interview where they largely ignored policy discussions and tough questions about his failures. Instead, they gave him a gushy retirement celebration where they repeatedly thanked him for what he’s done to America, with cast members calling him “one of the most substantial presidents of the past half century,” and proclaiming “his legacy will be etched in the history books as [George] Washington.”
The nauseous praise started from the get-go with moderator Whoopi Goldberg declaring that Biden had “stepped up to lead us out of the dark of a very divisive era and became one of the most substantial presidents of the past half century.”
Pretend moderate Sara Haines kicked off the questions by opining about how he “decided to step aside from seeking re-election putting your country first above any personal ambition and passing the torch” to Vice President Harris. “What have these past two months felt like, and are you at peace with your decision?” she wondered.
“I am at peace with my decision,” Biden said before making fun of his age. “Now, I know I only look 40, but I’m 180 years old. I’ve been around forever.” He also seemed to strangely suggest that he was so busy being successful that he forgot not to run again:
Fondacaro was then angry that co-host Whoopi Goldberg dared to defend Biden:
Further on the matter of Biden being forced out, Goldberg raged at Democrats for having their infighting out in the open for Americans to see before they pushed him out. “Listen, I didn’t like the way they did it. I’m just going to say it out loud, cause nobody says it out loud,” she said with a righteous indignation.
“I didn’t like the way it was done publicly. I thought they could have done this in a different way because we didn’t need to hear all the inner fighting. I didn’t like it. I’m saying it to you. You were my ride or die. I was going wherever you were going, that’s where I was going,” she told their guest.
Fondacaro then appeared to blame Goldberg for the shooting attempt on Trump, complaining that she engaged in the “same kind of dehumanizing rhetoric that had led to two assassination attempts against former President Trump” as she “equated the former President to ‘a bug’ and Biden acted out crushing him.” Fondacaro offered no similar denunciation of Trump’s dehumanizing rhetoric.
After that, Fondacaro groused that “Fake Republican Ana Navarro thanked Biden from the bottom of her heart for making a bunch of DEI hires for his cabinet and other parts of the federal government.” He didn’t explain why the color of one’s skin disqualifies one from serving in government. Fondacaro concluded by invoking his favorite libelous smear of one host:
At the end of the show, they went around the table and gave their parting praises. Staunchly racist and anti-Semitic co-host Sunny Hostin (the descendant of slave owners) called Biden “warm and wonderful” and suggested “his legacy will be etched in the history books as [George] Washington, as someone who put that ego aside and put his country first. That’s definitely his legacy.”
According to Haines: “He’s so decent. He is a good man and reminds you of the times you could look up to politicians and they were called to serve and they were good people.”
Fondacaro’s legacy, meanwhile, is putting himself and his employer in legal jeopardy because of his hateful, malicious lies about Hostin. We’re sure her lawyers are keeping a running list of his irrational rage.
Tim Walz visit
When Tim Walz appeared on the show for an interview, Fondacaro raged about it in an Oct. 21 post:
ABC News’s The View became the first broadcast news program to completed the trifecta of Democratic campaign interviews on Monday, when they brought on Governor and vice presidential nominee Tim Walz (D-MN). Just as with their recent gushfest interviews with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Walz was treated to a plethora of softball questions; including an opportunity to clean up Harris’s mess from her appearance. They also surprised him with a custom flannel shirt with their logo and more.
Possibly reprimanded by ABC corporate after previously introducing Harris as “the next vice president of the United States” during her interview, moderator Whoopi Goldberg didn’t give Walz such a grandiose entrance:
Rather than actually address anything Walz said, he rehashed his previous rant about Harris:
Speaking of zingers. During Harris’s appearance, she infamously botched a simple question about if there was anything she would have done differently than Biden the last four years. “There is not a thing that comes to mind… and I've been part of most of the decisions that have had impact,” she answered.
Pretend moderate Sara Haines gave Walz a chance to fix the damage Harris had done by asking the same question, making clear it was a do-over:
Fondacaro finally got around to addressing something Walz-related:
When it came to Walz’s lies about his military record, stolen valor, and fabrications about being in Tiananmen Square to witness the massacre, faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin didn’t call him out. Instead, she downplayed them as just “misstatements” and defending him by arguing that former President Trump was worse:
Fondacaro made no attempt to rebut the claim — probably because he knows it’s true. He concluded by huffing that the co-hosts continued to be nice to Walz:
Toward the end of the third segment with Walz, Haines gifted their guest with a custom flannel shirt complete with The View logo embroidered on the front and “dad in plaid” (a nickname coined by former President Obama) on the back. “That's the single greatest thing I've ever got,” Walz thanked them.
“And, if you win, will you wear it back and come back and visit us? When you win, will you wear it back and come back?” fake Republican Ana Navarro begged him. “Yes, I’m wearing – That's what I was going to say. You know I'm wearing this,” Walz boasted.
By contrast, nobody at the MRC complained when “Fox News Sunday” presented a birthday cake to then-Republican Rep. Paul Ryan.
More election meltdowns
Fondacaro lashed out just as much whenever one of the co-hosts said anything that violated his rigidly held right-wing narratives — in general, saying nice things about Harris or criticizing Donald Trump. And even “The View” is an opinion show, Fondacaro repeatedly went on tirades against the hosts for, you know, having opinions — obsessively so, as demonstrated in a Sept. 24 post:
Often forgotten as a program under the ABC News umbrella, The View is the highest-rated daytime talk show in America and known for making headlines for the ridiculous things their co-hosts espouse, particularly their strong hatred of former President Trump. But even the second assassination attempt against the former President wasn’t enough to loosen their deep-seated animus, as a new study by the Media Research Center found their coverage was still 100% negative.
The MRC examined the five shows that constituted the week immediately following the second attempt on Trump’s life (September 16 – September 20). The analysis found 36 evaluative statements made by the six co-hosts and all of them were negative.
In addition, they made nine evaluative statements about Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance (R) and all of those were negative as well. While there were no mentions of the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Governor Tim Walz (MN), there were nine such statements about Vice President Kamala Harris. All of the statements about her were positive. By contrast, the MRC never demanded that, say, Fox News offer more positive coverage of Harris, and it has never criticized any right-wing channel host for having “strong hatred” of Harris.
Our analysts examined only evaluative statements made by the various hosts, not guests. So while The View did have former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 19’s show, and the cast teed her up to discuss Trump, since she’s not a cast member her comments were not included.
As is usual in these kinds of MRC “studies,” neutral statements were explicitly excluded, which deliberately skews the numbers.
In an Oct. 3 post, Fondadaro — whose employer regularly attacks conservatives who deviate even slightly from the designated right-wing narrative — suddenly decided it was OK for Melania Trump to favor abortion rights:
As part of the launch of her new book, former First Lady Melania Trump put out a video where she broke with pro-lifers and spouted her own pro-abortion stance. But according to some of the cast members of ABC’s The View, Melania couldn’t possibly hold personal opinions that run contrary to her husbands or the political party she’s not a member of. Instead, they suggested that it was part of some GOP plot to trick voters about the Republican position on abortion.
The suggestion that Melania’s position was just “a big scam” came from co-host Joy Behar. But she couldn’t get her argument straight. She flip-flopped between claiming it was ploy to help her husband get elected but also, at the same time, she hated him:
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Faux conservative Alyssa Farah Griffin noted that “even though it was written a while ago,” the release of Melania’s opinion was “strategic” to the election. “I think they think this is going to give Republicans permission or independence to be like, ‘oh, I guess I could vote for him because people who support abortion can,’” she said.
But she also pointed out that “this actually doesn’t put her out of step with all modern Republican first ladies. Laura Bush, Barbara Bush were all actually pro-choice themselves and had declared that on the record before.”
She then dubbed this another “hypocrisy” of the Republican Party since the story didn’t cause them to abandon their candidate a month before the election. “But in the Trump-era if any other national Republican candidate running for president, if their spouse came out and said, ‘I am pro-choice and I even support late term abortion,’ their career would be over,” she huffed.
Fondacaro didn’t explain why only Melania Trump has been given permission by the MRC to deviate from the mandated narrative.
Fondacaro whined in an Oct. 9 post that Trump’s duplicity with Russia was called out:
ABC’s The View continued to spew their stochastic terrorism during Wednesday’s show as co-host Joy Behar, without evidence, accused former President Trump and Senators Lindsey Graham (SC) and Marco Rubio (FL) of treason, a crime which carried the death penalty. Moderator Whoopi Goldberg followed up by demanding they and Republicans leave the country to live under a dictatorship.
Their comments were spurred on by unverified claims made by former journalist and author Bob Woodward, who claimed in a new book that Trump sent COVID tests to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Behar seemed to hold up the Kremlin as a credible source as she declared Trump guilty of treason:
Fondacaro gave no reason why the denial of an inveterate liar like Trump should be trusted by anyone.
Fondacaro spent an Oct. 10 post falsely framing Goldberg as having a “fragile ego” because she responded to Trump denigrating her stage act at a former casino of his, which he insisted was her having a “meltdown” — despite Goldberg pointing out that Trump really couldn’t have been that offended given that he hired her four times to perform. On Oct. 18, Fondacaro got mad that Trump’s extreme rhetoric would likely have consequences for the show:
ABC New [sic] is desperate to get Vice President Kamala Harris elected president. How desperate? Joy Behar, co-host of news program The View, repeatedly fear mongered that former President Trump planned to have “the Air Forces” bomb their studio and have the military kill liberals if he was elected again. On Wednesday’s show, she told viewers not to trust the polls and the media, suggesting they were on his side and were trying to depress Democratic voter turnout.
“Let me tell you something. I was watching interviews with MAGA supporters. They do not believe that he will do what he says he’s going to do. That’s what we’re up against,” she decried on Tuesday’s episode.
When the ladies pointed out that felon and rapist Trump was invited to speak at a church-linked benefit, Fondacaro lost it in an Oct. 18 post:
ABC’s The View is so anti-Trump that they will denounce even legitimate charities that help many people if they dare to invite him to an event; even a charity event that traditionally invites both major party presidential candidates. The liberal ladies kicked off their Friday episode by attacking Catholic Charities for keeping with tradition and inviting former President Trump (and Vice President Harris) to their Al Smith Dinner.
Friday moderator Joy Behar repeatedly lashed out at Cardinal Dolan for inviting Trump at all despite the fact the event had historically brought together both sides of the political aisle for a good cause:
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Fake Republican Ana Navarro noted “this dinner raised funds for Catholic Charities and some of the work the church does with the most needy,” and “I actually worked with Catholic Charities when I was in high school.”
But that didn’t stop her from attacking the charity organization for trying to maximize the event for their mission: “They help immigrants. So, to have Donald Trump sitting there and we are pretending that he is some sort of, like, upstanding citizen, I find it rather offensive.”
“I am glad Kamala Harris wasn’t there,” she added.
How does having a felon and rapist speak at your event help a cause, however good? Fondacaro doesn’t explain.
Fondacaro served up one more pre-election hatefest on Nov. 4, joining the rest of the MRC in defending Trump against using violent rhetoric against Liz Cheney, who was a guest of the show that day. He then turned his ire to Cheney herself:
Later on in the gooey interview, pretend moderate Sara Haines praised Cheney for turning her back on her party and joining the Democrats at the ballot box. “And you not only endorsed her. You, for the first time ever, voted for a Democrat,” she touted.
“So, I want to ask you how that feels, but I also want to ask, was any part of that — this idea of reclaiming the actual conservative values of the party? Because I always say, to get the Republican Party back, they have to get it out of Trump’s hands,” Haines wanted to know.
Cheney proceeded to ramble on about how Republicans need to vote for Democrats to somehow save their party.
She also condescendingly lectured Republicans who had stronger principles than her and were choosing to write-in another Republican rather than vote for any of the options. “And I want to make sure people all across the country understand you don’t have that luxury. We have to defeat him,” she chided.
Fondacaro’s idea of “stronger principles” is someone who votes for a felon and rapist because he’s desperate for a Republican win, despite that undermining the usual GOP law-and-order stance.
Hopefully, Fondacaro will use some of his post-election downtime to visit a therapist to deal with his issues with women.