The View has spent years lecturing the country about the dangers of personal attacks on women in politics.
Joy Behar apparently missed those episodes.
Because what Behar did to Karoline Leavitt recently is exactly the kind of thing the Left claims to oppose — and a fellow co-host called her out for it on live television.
What Leavitt Actually Said
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt appeared on Jesse Watters Primetime on Fox News for a conversation about the rise of far-left candidates winning Democrat primaries across the country.
The two were talking about young Democrat voters who support progressive candidates like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the candidates President Donald Trump called “godless communists,” who won a string of primaries in New York.
Leavitt addressed younger generations and what she called “laziness” in the workforce during a broader conversation about the rise of communist-style candidates in the Democrat Party.
“Unfortunately, I do, because this generation, my generation, I hate to say it, Gen Z and those younger than me have been raised with just silver spoons in their mouths, just getting everything handed to them. That’s not the values this country was built on,” the White House press secretary said.
She added: “It was built on meritocracy and hard work, pulling up your sleeves, pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, and achieving the American dream, and we need to protect it with all we’ve got.”
“It’s laziness and it’s liberal indoctrination. You bring up a great point about our education system. However, I will say, silver lining, so many parents I talked to across the country are homeschooling, are turning to private education, are turning towards Christian schools across the country because they don’t want their children being taught these communist and liberal ideas slammed down their throat.”
Those are strong words. They are also the kind of words a lot of parents across this country have been saying quietly for years. Leavitt just said them out loud, on national television, from the White House podium’s closest ally.
Leavitt tied it back to the administration’s agenda: “It’s why President Trump and the White House have advocated so strongly for school choice across the country. We want kids to be taught to love our country. They should. It is the greatest country in the history of the world.”
Behar Reaches for the Gutter
The women of The View reacted the way they usually do — with groans and eye rolls before the clip even finished playing.
The hosts collectively groaned after listening to Leavitt on Fox News claiming that younger people are being drawn to Democratic socialism because they’ve been “raised with silver spoons in their mouths.”
“Gross,” Behar said.
And then she went somewhere that had nothing to do with policy.
She called out Leavitt for her marriage to 60-year-old millionaire real estate developer Nicholas Riccio. Leavitt is 28 years old.
“She married a rich guy, so talk about a DEI hire,” Behar fumed.
Let that sit for a second. A woman who built a career in political communications, ran for Congress, and became the youngest White House Press Secretary in American history just got called a DEI hire — by a television host who has spent decades complaining that women aren’t taken seriously in this country.
Sunny Hostin took the point and ran with it while arguing Gen-Zers are not lazy. “I think to Joy’s point, you know, it’s really rich for her to, at 28 years old, married to a 65-year-old, I mean that’s her choice — he’s worth $6 million… $61 million, so I’m not sure where she comes off saying that Gen-Zers are lazy.”
Hostin continued: “Two thirds of Gen-Zs are now in the workforce, 42% of them say they are living paycheck to paycheck.”
But then something unexpected happened.
“Just to be fair to Karoline, she’s been personally very successful. She’s had a big career in politics and media. She’s made over $1 million herself,” Alyssa Farah Griffin said in defense of Leavitt.
Farah Griffin, the token Republican on the panel, pushed back. Which means even inside the The View‘s own studio, Behar’s attack didn’t land cleanly.
The Left’s Selective Feminism, on Full Display
The DEI label has been a favorite weapon of the Left for years now — used to dismiss conservative women and minorities who achieve positions of power without the Left’s approval. Behar just turned it around on a 28-year-old working mother who serves as the face of the most powerful executive office on the planet, and the audience was supposed to cheer.
Leavitt, for her part, didn’t back down from the substance of what she said on Fox News. She wrote on X that “this interview was about the rise of communism on the Left, and I was asked by Jesse Watters why so many young people are buying the false promise of ‘free stuff’ being sold by communist politicians.” Her answer: “a combination of laziness, yes, and the liberal indoctrination that has been taking place in our education system for far too long.”
Leavitt said she has to tell “uncomfortable truths” because she cares about the country. “It’s an undeniable fact that a growing number of young people in our country are falling for the lies of socialism and communism, sold to them by anti-American politicians who’ve never built anything, offer no real solutions, and are intent on tearing down everything that makes this country great,” she said.
And she’s not wrong. The socialist left has been making serious inroads with young voters, and the question of why deserves a real answer. Leavitt’s answer — that government schools have spent a generation teaching kids that capitalism is the enemy and the government is the solution — is one that millions of parents share.
But none of that was what The View wanted to talk about. They wanted to talk about her husband.
There’s a word for judging a woman’s professional accomplishments by who she married. The Left used to oppose that sort of thing. Apparently the rule only applies when the woman in question holds the correct political views.
Leavitt acknowledged nuance in her follow-up: “At the same time, it’s also true that many Gen Z Americans are hardworking, entrepreneurial, and deeply patriotic, and it’s vital we protect the American Dream for them.” She added: “I will continue to call out the radical Democrats, socialists, and communists who are lying to our youth.”
That’s a Press Secretary doing her job — making an argument, standing behind it, and refining it under fire. Joy Behar, by contrast, made an argument about a 28-year-old woman’s marriage.
The audience for that kind of attack is shrinking. And based on what happened inside the studio, even some of the people sitting at that table know it.
Sources: Mediaite, Newsweek, HuffPost, Raw Story