The hosts of The View on Thursday expressed their extreme dissatisfaction with Miles Taylor, who revealed on Wednesday that he was the Trump administration official who anonymously authored a scathing anti-Trump New York Times op-ed and subsequent book, calling the current CNN pundit an “opportunist” who is “full of it.”
Taylor, a former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff, began speaking out publicly against President Donald Trump this past summer. Besides launching an anti-Trump group of Republican leaders and former Trump administration officials, Taylor was also hired by CNN as an on-air analyst. The network contends they were unaware that Taylor was Anonymous before Wednesday and said he will remain a contributor, despite the fact that he lied on-air in August about being the unnamed author when directly asked by Anderson Cooper.
Prior to discussing Taylor finally revealing his identity, The View aired a clip of CNN anchor Chris Cuomo asking his colleague why they should keep him on the payroll since he’s proven himself a liar, prompting Taylor to assert he was under an obligation to deny being Anonymous after his book came out.
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“So some people are disappointed that he’s Anonymous, I guess,” host Whoopi Goldberg noted. “I mean, are you? I mean, think about it, Joy. He came out. He landed really the first volley of—there’s something going on here that you should know about and people are upset. What do you think?”
Liberal co-host Joy Behar, however, was not in the mood to give Taylor the benefit of the doubt or any plaudits whatsoever.
“He doesn't pass the smell test, OK? I don't like him. I don’t like him,” she fumed. “He was an aide to the chief of staff during the original separation of children at the border, and his rationalization is that he was trying to protect the children. Well, that to me is a lot of B.S. because a lot of people in this administration are doing evil things and the Republican leadership, and they say, ‘Oh, I wanted to protect the country.’”
After tossing criticism at other former Trump administration officials who are apparently critical of the president in private but refuse to go public, Behar again circled back to the administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that Taylor had a hand in.
“You do not drag and wrench a four-month-old child away from its mother and you cannot rationalize that,” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry. I do not give this guy a pass. I think he’s full of it and that’s my word on him!”
Asked whether she thought Taylor was trying to warn Americans from inside the administration or his actions were “B.S.,” co-host Sunny Hostin said she agreed with Behar and that he ultimately did not show any courage or bravery.
“I don’t know that this guy did the right thing, you know,” she stated. “He hid behind his anonymity, and he sounded the alarm, but kind of silently in my opinion.”
Hostin went on to further hit Taylor on his role in family separations, adding that he isn’t a “white knight on the horse helping people.”
Co-host Sara Haines, not known for strong political stances, also blasted Taylor, saying he is “not a whistleblower” but rather “an opportunist,” adding that Taylor “kind of cashed in on his job at the White House while kind of dabbling in being someone that people were talking about.”
She also took aim at The New York Times for initially hyping Taylor as a “senior administration official” when they published his initial op-ed, even though Tylor was only deputy chief of staff at DHS at the time.
“The New York Times touted this guy as something bigger than he was, and today we stand here with someone who wasn't really a senior official of anything,” she concluded. “So anti-climactic would be the best word.”
