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The View in Review

Guest Host Lindsey Granger Spars With Whoopi and Joy Over Covid Mandates: 'That's Not True!'

"What's more important, your health or your education?" asked Joy Behar.
  • Lindsey Granger didn't impress the co-hosts in her first of two days at the table. (Photos: ABC)
    Lindsey Granger didn't impress the co-hosts in her first of two days at the table. (Photos: ABC)

    On Tuesday, guest co-host Lindsey Granger learned the hard way that The View's co-hosts are not to be messed with. In her first of two days on The View, Granger clashed with Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar over COVID mandates, mask requirements, and school closures, leaving the full-timers with no choice but to school their new tablemate.

    Granger, a Daily Blast Live host, found herself at odds with Sunny Hostin early in today's episode, but it wasn't until the discussion flipped to education that things really got spicy. "In the past maybe Democrats maintained the narrative on education, but that has completely changed. I think Republicans are now taking that over, with Democrats being more concerned about changing the names of schools versus getting kids back in school when we were in the pandemic," said Granger. "What's more important? Keeping the parents involved in their kids' education, or teaching them—"

    "Wait a minute," interrupted Behar. "What's more important, your health or your education? If you have to have one, for a short period of time—"

    "I think they're equally as important," replied Granger. "The effects on kids are obvious when it came down to masks. They were wearing them [below the chin], up here ... Kids should be back in school."

    When Behar asked why poor mask-wearing justifies ending mask mandates entirely, Granger turned the discussion back around on liberals, saying, "Democrats largely kept them out of schools."

    "I'm sorry. No, that's not true! What kept them out of school was Omicron!" replied Whoopi, to a large round of applause from the audience.

    After Granger baselessly claimed that kids "were failing miserably" in states that went remote during Omicron, the longtime moderator shut her down again. "It is not over. It is not up. But I know that nobody went to work. Nobody went to school. Everybody was cranky, and that's what it was," she said. "But what kept people out of the buildings and out of their schools was this idea that there was something out there that we hadn't dealt with in our lifetime that was killing people!"

    The discussion continued along the same pattern, with Granger spouting a conservative talking point, and the co-hosts stepping in to dismantle it. By the end of the segment, the guest co-host had sounded off on Biden's updated COVID response, Critical Race Theory, and parents' rights, plus the COVID-related topics, all to little success. If she's going to succeed at The View, Granger will need to read up on the day's biggest issues — and learn how to stick to one topic per discussion.

    Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.

    TOPICS: Lindsey Granger, ABC, The View, Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Coronavirus