For years, I’ve genuinely wondered why producers at The View even try to bring in a “conservative voice.” It tokenizes Republican women, and the Republican women who are hired are usually idiots, hypocrites and a–holes. I understand the idea of not wanting to have four or five women at a table in political lockstep, but there’s so much nuance to political factions these days – there would be just as much drama if you put a Trump-hating Reagan Republican in the mix with a Bernie Sanders supporter and a ride-or-die Hillary Clinton supporter. Unfortunately, The View’s producers are having a hell of time finding a “Republican unicorn” to replace Meghan McCain. From Politico:

Before taking off for the holidays, the four long-standing hosts of “The View” had a message for executive producer Brian Teta: We’re tired of the rotating cast of Republican guest hosts. When MEGHAN MCCAIN departed in August, Teta initially told the Wrap that he was “taking a little time” to find a replacement. Since then, ABC has tried out a variety of conservative fill-ins, including S.E. CUPP, ALYSSA FARAH, MORGAN ORTAGUS, CONDOLEEZZA RICE, CARLY FIORINA, and GRETCHEN CARLSON.

Nearly six months in, the show has yet to settle on a permanent replacement. And now, the longtime co-hosts — JOY BEHAR, WHOOPI GOLDBERG and SUNNY HOSTIN — are upping the pressure to pick a successor, and voicing their displeasure at having to introduce new guest hosts week after week in a seemingly endless process that they find disruptive to the flow of the show.

“Right now, we still do need a really conservative voice,” Hostin told New York Magazine in November. “And we need someone that’s not duplicative of anyone else on the panel.”

According to a spokesperson for “The View,” the program will continue to audition potential hosts in the new year, bringing some women back for a second turn. Farah will return in January, and the show will bring in other big names, like BARI WEISS and LISA LING — neither of whom exactly fit the “conservative” label — while the network continues to conduct focus groups on the audience’s reaction.

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. 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.

“The problem is that they bring people on under the mantle that this woman is a conservative, when they’re ‘Never Trump,’ so they don’t represent the country,” said one of the rotating guest hosts. At the same time, the anti-Trump conservative can’t be seen as too chummy with the other co-hosts, as the network’s market-research shows that the audience wants to see the women spar. Sources said that this has hurt the chances of ANA NAVARRO, a regular fill-in on the conservative chair who worked as a surrogate for JOE BIDEN in 2020: She is perceived by the producers as too friendly with the other hosts and not a traditional Republican.

“They are really looking for a unicorn,” said a former show staffer. “They want someone who is going to fight — but not too hard, because they don’t want it to be ugly and bickering.”

[From Politico]

I remember when Nicolle Wallace was their conservative voice, and she went on to host one of MSNBC’s best shows – she’s a Never Trumper, and she has been one of the smartest voices criticizing her party and Donald Trump. Ana Navarro is like that too – a very incisive commentator who no longer recognizes her Republican party. My point? The View is never going to find their unicorn: a conservative political operative/commentator who loves Trump, thinks the January 6th insurrectionists were terrorists, thinks Joe Biden won the election fairly and someone who isn’t a racist Nazi loon. That person doesn’t exist.

Screencaps courtesy of The View.