Griffin previously worked for President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.
Key Points
- The View cohost Alyssa Farah Griffin admitted that she set up a Trump investment account for her newborn baby.
- Fellow cohost Sunny Hostin shocked the audience when she praised Trump's account policy as "a win."
- The View's Sara Haines also said she commends "the effort" of the conservative administration.
The View cohosts — or at least some of them — shocked the daytime TV scene by praising one of President Donald Trump's policies, with one even admitting that she's taking advantage of its benefits after welcoming her first baby earlier this year.
On Tuesday morning, former White House staffer and conservative commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin (who previously worked for Trump's communications team before resigning and speaking out against him) praised the administration's "Trump Account" initiative, which the Associated Press described earlier this year as an effort to "give $1,000 to every newborn, so long as their parents open an account. That money is then invested in the stock market by private firms, and the child can access the money when they turn 18," which can increase its value to an estimated $200,000, Griffin said on the air.
"I actually agree with this, but I'm going to preface it and say the fact that he puts his name on everything is just so cringe," Griffin admitted. "I set up one of these Trump Accounts for my son when he was born. The government matches $1,000."
Griffin, who was "super open with my fertility journey" ahead of welcoming her baby, Justin Griffin, in February, told the audience that "it took me five rounds of IVF" and "six figures to get pregnant," because she "didn't have any coverage from employers from it, because I'm a contractor."
She added that, under Trump's drug prescription initiative related to fertility, one of her medications now costs "about 10 percent of what I paid for it" outside the policy.
"These are tangible impacts that can help people. My thing is, Trump gives us plenty to critique him on legitimately. This, to me, is not bad policy," Griffin said.
Sara Haines, an independent at the Hot Topics table, pointed out that declining birth rates (which reportedly inspired Trump's aforementioned policy) were, as she projected, a result of rising costs that make raising a family more difficult amid the current economic landscape.
"They don't have the type of infrastructure," Haines estimated, before comedian Joy Behar tore into officials labeling children born under these policies as "Trump Babies."
"You know what gets me? This lie that they care about children. They seem to care about white children. When they say more 'Trump Babies,' what does that mean?" she asked. "I'd like to remind people that this administration dismantled USAID, which helped children around the world," Behar continued, before adding, "Don't tell me you care about children. You only care about these children that you call Trump children."
Sunny Hostin, a staunch Trump critic, called out the administration for not acknowledging "the Black maternal mortality crisis" amid discussions about these policies, but also used her own personal experience with in vitro fertilization to ultimately praise the initiative.
"I think this is a win," Hostin said, though she observed that "there's so much to criticize Donald Trump for," but "these particular things, where you have a Trump account where your children can have $200,000 when they're 18 years old ... I think you call a thing a thing, and I think these are good policies."
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Whoopi Goldberg sent the show to a commercial break with a final thought on the matter: "I will not give him this until he takes care of the kids from birth to 18 or to 20." The actress was echoing her previously expressed sentiment that she wants more policies that help parents raise children after birth.
Speaking about the birth of her baby earlier this year, Griffin said upon her return to The View from maternity leave that her child was born in a "traumatic" way, as she "started to hemorrhage" after her placenta got stuck.
The View airs weekdays on ABC.
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