‘The View’: Sunny Hostin Argues With Alyssa Farah Griffin & Sara Haines Over Texas Floods

Alyssa Norwin July 8, 2025, 12:19 pm

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Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin — ABC

The tragedy in Texas in the aftermath of recent floods was a discussion during Hot Topics on the Tuesday, July 8, episode of The View. The conversation began with moderator Whoopi Goldberg pointing out, “The flood doesn’t care who you voted for. Floods don’t care. They take your house, they take your family. This is what we’ve seen. Questions are growing about what we could’ve done to prevent this tragedy.”

She then played a clip of Senator Ted Cruz saying, “There have been some eager to point at the National Weather Service and say cuts there led to lack of warning. I think that’s contradicted by facts. For either side to attack political opponents, I think that’s cynical and not the right approach when we’re dealing with crisis and grief.”

Goldberg then opened the discussion up to her cohosts by asking, “These safety concerns came up before this tragedy happened and have been coming up for years. People in power have had the opportunity to make changes to the grid, to all of these things that we are seeing, and I’m just wondering, when is the right time to ask this question, then?”

Sunny Hostin was first to weigh in. “I think now is the right time to ask the question,” she insisted. “I understand people are grieving. I myself send my children to sleepaway camp in Maine and in New Hampshire, and the thought that my kids might not be coming back is something that is, for me, unfathomable. I feel such empathy for these families, but this could have been mitigated or avoided all together.”

She explained that, “In 2017, my understand is Caro county, where this happened, contemplated a flood warning system. That would be sirens. Not emails that kids in camp wouldn’t get because kids in camp aren’t allowed to have their phones. So these sirens could’ve saved lives. It was rejected as too expensive. Money, instead, was funneled to border security.”

To conclude her point, Hostin pointed out that, while a siren can cost “up to $50,000,” the small, unincorporated town of Comfort, Texas, put money into sirens and “not one person died.”

Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin both said they agreed with Hostin’s assessment, but took issue with her stance that these issues should be addressed right now. “If my child left for camp and didn’t come ome, to know what happened to them was raw and recent, I don’t think I would’ve wanted to know it could’ve been avoided yet,” Haines admitted.

She said she believes sirens “are probably the answer” and is fine for that discussion to come up at a later date, but added, “Right now I can’t help but imagine that if my child was gone right now and I heard someone say it could have been avoided, I don’t know how I’d take my next step.”

Griffing insisted that the “focus right now should be on the first responders and victims and how you can help them.” She also “respectfully disagreed” with Hostin’s take that sirens would’ve prevented a loss of life altogether. “After action reports are really important, but politicizing is not the answer,” she added.

At that point, Joy Behar jumped in to defend Hostin. “[Donald] Trump does it all the time! He immediately starts the blame game.” Hostin then continued, “I don’t think it’s about pointing fingers, I think it’s about seeing how this could have been avoided.”

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She referenced school shootings and how “everyone sends thoughts and prayers, but no one wants to talk about it, then we forget about it and another one happens.” Griffin argued that with shootings it’s easier to place blame, but “with a natural disaster, I disagreed that it’s like this could have been avoided.” When Behar brought up the sirens again, Griffin reiterated her earlier take that she doesn’t believe sirens would’ve resulted in no loss of life.

Goldberg had to send the show to commercial, but she ended the conversation on a point that everyone seemed to agree with: “I’m shocked this is coming out of my mouth. I’m not pointing the finger at the man in the White House. I’m saying there’s a state that is in trouble and has been and it doesn’t seem like anything is changing, and maybe we need to get on top of that.”

The View, Weekdays, 11 a.m. ET, ABC