'If it ain't broke don't fix it': Critics slam The View's struggle to find a permanent replacement for Meghan McCain

In August, GOP activist Meghan McCain left ABC’s daytime talk show “The View” — and with 2022 less than a week away, the show’s executive producer, Brian Teta, has yet to find a permanent replacement for her. Journalist Tara Palmeri, this week in Politico’s Playbook column, reports that “The View’s” permanent hosts are pressuring Teta to find someone sooner rather than later.

“When Meghan McCain departed in August,” Palmeri explains, “Teta initially told the Wrap that he was ‘taking a little time” to find a replacement.’ Since then, ABC has tried out a variety of conservative fill-ins, including S.E. Cupp, Alyssa Farah, Morgan Ortagus, Condoleezza Rice, Carly Fiorina and Gretchen Carlson…. And now, the longtime co-hosts — Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg and Sunny Hostin — are upping the pressure to pick a successor, and voicing their displeasure at having to introduce new guest hosts week after week in a seemingly endless process that they find disruptive to the flow of the show.”

In November, Palmeri notes, Hostin told New York Magazine, “Right now, we still do need a really conservative voice. And we need someone that’s not duplicative of anyone else on the panel.”

CNN’s Ana Navarro, a Florida-based GOP activist and Never Trump conservative, has often been featured on “The View.” But according to Palmeri, Navarro “is perceived by the producers as too friendly with the other hosts and not a traditional Republican.”

However, Palmeri notes that the show’s producers “will not consider a Republican who is a denier of the 2020 election results, embraced the January 6 riots, or is seen as flirting too heavily with fringe conspiracy theories or the MAGA wing of the GOP. But at the same time, the host must have credibility with mainstream Republicans, many of whom still support Donald Trump.”

On one hand, Navarro, Cupp and CNN’s Amanda Carpenter are too polite to Democrats. On the other hand, someone who promotes wacko far-right conspiracy theories on Fox News wouldn’t work either. McCain is a vehement critic of former President Donald Trump, but she wasn’t shy about lashing out at Behar or Goldberg when she was on “The View.”

One person Palmeri doesn’t mention in the column is Fox News/Fox Business’ Lisa Kennedy Montgomery. She is right-wing without being a raving lunatic, but the former MTV veejay is way too libertarian for many MAGA Republicans. Although Montgomery is quite conservative fiscally, she is critical of the Christian Right and parts company with social conservatives when it comes to abortion, gay rights and marijuana.

Palmeri reports, “Sources said that the show was eager to recruit young libertarian Kat Timpf, but she turned them down because of the show’s reputation for treating conservatives poorly and her contract with Fox. Timpf declined to comment to Playbook.”

Palmeri’s reporting on “The View” is inspiring a lot of discussion on Twitter. Here of some of the responses: