‘The View’ Hosts Debate Whether America Is ‘Failed Experiment’ on 250th Birthday

The cohosts of The View had a spirited conversation ahead of the upcoming 250th birthday of the United States of America. On Friday’s (June 5) show, the conversation came up first with the subject of Donald Trump‘s decision to host a UFC fight on the White House lawn … and his comparison of the giant installation to the Eiffel Tower in France.

After reviewing footage of Trump floating the idea of the ring being a permanent fixture and Joe Rogan calling the event “so American,” Goldberg then noted a statistic that said while two-thirds of Republicans were “proud” to be American, more than 80 percent of Democrats feel differently.

“I don’t know if that’s true,” Goldberg said before turning the conversation over to her cohost.

“Did he really just compare that UFC show to the Eiffel Tower?” Sara Haines wondered aloud.

“Please, he’s trolling,” Alyssa Farah Griffin answered.

“My mind doesn’t jump to UFC fighting on the White House lawn [as American] unless it’s a really crazy dream I’m having because I drank too much,” Haines then said. “I don’t understand this, but I couldn’t be more proud as we head into this 250th to be American.” She then cited her experience on Finding Your Roots and learning that she was a descendant of American Revolution veterans as a moment of clarity. “I think it just reminds you at a moment like this how deeply patriotic this country is and how many people sacrificed so much to get to this point. It’s an imperfect social experiment, and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.”

Ana Navarro, who fled Nicaragua as a child, then jumped in to say, “I went through a civil war. I fled communism, and I live in a community in South Florida that is full of people who have fled political turmoil and oppression, and so I will never take for granted the freedom, the refuge, the opportunity that this country awarded me and so many other immigrants.” However, she also noted that while she is “proud of the exceptionalism and resilience of this country,” she also has feelings of being “ashamed and embarrassed and horrified by the American government right now.” She then named Alex Pretti and Renee Good’s deaths, along with the detention of children by ICE, as examples of the things that make her “ashamed.” However, she concluded her note by saying, “But I will never stop being proud of being an American.”

Griffin then counted herself among the Republicans who are proud of being American but clarified, “I don’t think that being American means that you can’t acknowledge our country has tremendous flaws, and we call this country an experiment in democracy because it’s not guaranteed, because we’re actually a very young country. What makes us so unique, and one of the things that makes me love this country so much is we’re unlike any other country on Earth in that we are racially, religiously, and socioeconomically incredibly diverse. There’s no country on Earth that has that. I see it as one of our greatest strengths, but it’s also the biggest contributor to a lot of the strife that we’ve seen over the past hundreds of years. If you think about it, every war in human history has basically come down to one of those things: race, religion, and socioeconomics. We have all of those in this country, yet we still power through and aspire to what the message of America can and should be. So, on the 250th anniversary, I’m thinking of this aspirational idea. It’s about liberty for all, it’s about the pursuit of happiness for all. It’s about free speech, something I will always defend at this table. That does not mean that we are not going to have real friction ahead of us, but I believe that arc is bending in the right direction. It just takes time.”

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Sunny Hostin had a very different take, noting that she also appeared on Finding Your Roots and discovered she was a descendant of slaves and those who enslaved others. “I think we have a very complicated history here. I think it’s a very complicated country, and at this point, I am embarrassed at our government. I’m embarrassed at our lack of health care. I’m embarrassed on the assault on the press. I’m embarrassed of our Congress. I’m embarrassed by the criminal felon president that is in the Oval Office that has a UFC cage on the White House lawn. I’m embarrassed about all those things, and I’m also embarrassed at how America is now seen across the globe. I don’t think that many Americans understand that we are part of a wonderful global community, and when you look at our allies, our allies are now giving us a one-star rating as a country. I am conflicted about this country because I feel that it is at this point a failed experiment, quite frankly. I am also discouraged by how this country is viewed by the rest of the world.”

Griffin then shook her head and asked Hostin to clarify whether she thinks America has “already failed” and is “beyond redemption at this point,” and Hostin confirmed, saying, “I think at this point it is failing. It is a fail.”

Griffin challenged whether a change of leadership could change things. Hostin said she spoke to former President Bill Clinton about it off camera and quoted him to say, “It’s going to take this country decades to recover from what has been done.”

Goldberg then contended that it won’t take decades and offered her opinion on America’s current status, saying, “I am really proud to be an American because I’ve lived in other places, as have we all, and to be able to do what we do and not get arrested tells you this is still America. I love all the places I’ve lived, but this is the only country that I know that allows us to do what we do, and for that, I’m forever grateful. For 250 years, if we’ve gotten to here, forget the last two years, figure how far we got, figure all the things, all the stuff women were able to do, all the things we were able to take care of ourselves, finding the ways to make our lives better. That’s why glass ceilings were broken. That’s why people fought and got run over and hit by water cannons, was for the right to be an American, to be considered an American, which is why I get so angry when I listen to people talk about who we’re not. We are all Americans. We don’t have to believe everything each other believes, but we are all Americans.”

The View, weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC