OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Anyone who even remotely follows politics knows that ABC’s “The View” is just another mainstream media echo chamber of left-wing thought featuring four Democratic cheerleaders and one token Republican who gets verbally assaulted by them on a regular basis.
In fact, the abuse became so staunch that it got to the point where the last conservative ‘regular’ — Meghan McCain — dreaded going to work, according to what she wrote in a recently released memoir.
What is even more confounding to politicos is who the show reached out to — Fox News’ Kat Timpf.
The Daily Beast noted:
Fox News contributor Kat Timpf declined the chance to replace Meghan McCain as the new permanent conservative co-host of The View, Politico Playbook reported on Monday.
With the long-running ABC talk show auditioning right-leaning fill-ins, veteran hosts Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Whoopi Goldberg have reportedly voiced displeasure that the process to replace McCain has taken so long. At the same time, according to Politico, producers are struggling to “find a conservative cast member who checks all the right boxes,” which includes having credibility with GOP audiences while not being prone to conspiracies and election denialism.
“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,” Playbook reported.
“Sources close to the show said that the search has stalled as executives struggle to find a conservative cast member who checks all the right boxes,” the report said.
“They 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,” Politico added.
Politico also reported that the show’s four leftist co-hosts were “tired of the rotating cast of Republican guest hosts” and want a permanent replacement.
One former staffer for The View said that the show is “really looking for a unicorn” and that they wanted ”someone who is going to fight — but not too hard because they don’t want it to be ugly and bickering.”
Meanwhile, Fox News is in big trouble.
Many scripted projects and late-night shows have gone dark for over a month now amid the WGA Writers Strike. However, not all of the late-night shows have gone off the air.
Fox News host Greg Gutfeld’s top-rated late-night comedy show “Gutfeld!” is still airing new episodes. Amid the writers’ strike, other late-night shows such as “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” “Late Night with Seth Meyers,” and “The Daily Show” have halted production. Gutfeld and his team are not WGA members.
Earlier this year, Gutfeld! rose to become the No. 1 late-night show in its time slot, besting the other network offerings whose hosts are almost always liberal.
His Fox News began averaging 2.1 million viewers through 2022, Nielsen Media Research showed, the Washington Times reported.
“The size of that viewing audience bests both NBC’s ‘The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon’ and ABC’s ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ and also consistently trumps such cable rivals as Comedy Central’s ‘The Daily Show’ and HBO’s ‘Last Week Tonight’ and ‘Real Time With Bill Maher,’” the report said.
Vox, known to be more of a liberal news organization, opined that “The biggest comedy show on late-night right now is not on ABC or NBC or CBS or Fox. It’s not on Comedy Central. It’s certainly not streaming. It’s on Fox News, and its name is ‘Gutfeld!’”
Gutfeld continues to be the most dominant force in cable news as a co-host of both “The Five” and also his late-night show “Gutfeld!”
The popular host also just announced a new book, titled, “The King of Late Night,” which will be released July 25, and details how Gutfeld “destroyed the mainstream late-night landscape of heavyweights and became the host of the #1 late night show in all of television.”
A separate report also notes how Gutfeld’s late-night show has brought in historic viewership for Fox News.
“The show replaced news program Fox News @ Night in April 2021, and has made double-digit gains on Fox since, with a 44 percent boost in total viewers and a 25 percent gain in the key 25-54 age demographic. Since its debut, Gutfeld! has averaged 1.9 million total viewers and 332,000 in the key demo. That audience has only grown from the debut: its first episode brought in about 1.7 million viewers total and 318,000 demo viewers — a strong showing that topped all of cable news at 11 p.m.,” Mediaite reported.
As of now, Gutfeld appears to be the undisputed top host at Fox News in terms of viewership.
“The Five” remains one of the most popular shows in all of cable news and his late-night comedy show “Gutfeld!” has been racking up historic numbers.
Gutfeld has also been going to bat for his former longtime colleague.
Perhaps in a move to defy his superiors, Gutfeld also joked about Carlson running for president, slammed another colleague for attacking Carlson, and even defended Tucker after several videos leaked this week.
Gutfeld, a co-host of “The Five” and host of his late-night show “Gutfeld,” defended Carlson on Tuesday after several video clips were leaked and published by the leftist group Media Matters.
The outlet has shared several of the behind-the-scenes comments from Carlson, which show him joking and having conversations with either guests or staff members before the show began.
