‘The View’ Cohosts Cheer Over Kristi Noem’s Firing: ‘Bye Felicia!’

The cohosts of The View were, in large part, chuffed over the news that Kristi Noem was fired by Donald Trump as the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on Friday’s (March 6) episode.

After Joy Behar introduced video of the moment Noem reportedly sealed her fate — saying Trump had approved of a $200+ million ad campaign that boosted her profile under questioning from a Republican senator — Behar noted that Trump is nominating Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin for the job next and asked the panelists for their takes on the matter.

Guest host Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who had defended Noem earlier in the week, was the first to respond. “I think we give credit to Senator Kennedy for deeply questioning and then also reaching out to the president to verify. You can’t accuse and then expect proof without proof. So he actually reached out to the president, and he was like, ‘I don’t know anything about them, and I didn’t approve it.’ And so I think now we have this information.”

When Behar then challenged, “Do you think he even knew what they were talking about?” Hasselbeck continued, “I think he does. I mean, $220 million … he’s tracking it.” She also praised Mullin as “willing and able and qualified to do a great job, so hopefully he’ll simmer things down, and then we can get back to business at the border.”

Ana Navarro agreed that Kennedy deserved praise for being “a Republican who hasn’t ceded his job of oversight,” adding, “more Republicans should follow his lead.”

She then championed the decision to oust Noem, saying, “Her department, under her leadership, has killed, injured, and detained U.S. citizens. She has detained almost 4,000 children in a detention center. The lack of morale. But what she did was, not only is it that she spent $220 million on this ad campaign, she was out there like in [a] cowboy costume and stuff in front of Mount Rushmore, some of these shoots were happening while the government shutdown was going on. So while the TSA agents who work under her department weren’t getting paid, she was going through these glamor shots at Mount Rushmore.”

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Sunny Hostin then chimed in to say her piece: “I’m never happy when someone loses their job or loses their career, but this could not have happened to a better person,” she said, earning audible applause from the crowd. “I mean, she needed to go. She needed to go. We knew that.”

However, she wasn’t altogether thrilled. “Her policies may still stand. We know now that ICE has killed American citizens. We know that they are detaining people that are, as you pointed out, Sara, appropriately going through the immigration process. We also know that there are masked men just grabbing people off the street and disappearing them from their family, separating their families, using children as bait to get their fathers and their mothers out of out of their home. We know that their training has been cut in half, and so, yes, she needed to go, but there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

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“And I’m not quite sure that this former senator, I think his name is Mullin… I’m not sure that he’s the person to do the job, because, if you remember… he’s a former MMA professional fighter, and he’s also the person that challenged the head of the Teamsters to a fight last year. He believes that he said babies born in the United States who immigrants living in the country illegally should be deported alongside their parents if the adults are removed, which is unconstitutional, because that goes to the very heart of birthright citizenship, which is in the Constitution.”

However, Hasselbeck had a rosier view. “I think under his leadership, much will change in terms of the mission of ICE, and I think we need to separate right now the good and the bad. If I can sit here and say, ‘Hey, that’s bad about the spending. It’s not great when our TSA workers aren’t getting paid, and you’re getting a Budweiser horse or something to ride around,’ I can be an honest, earnest citizen and say, like, ‘I’m seeing the good. I’m seeing a drop in fentanyl crossing the border. I’m seeing a drop in murders on the border by Americans, I’ve seen 145,000 immigrants that were brought in are now reunited with their families. Joe Biden allowed 400,000 children to go missing and separate from their families so that they’re being reunited.’ It’s not all good, and it’s not all bad. I think we just need be like, feel it in your heart and your skin to know like this or bad. There are some good things.”

Sara Haines then offered her take. “The most important thing is there’s some accountability. I think what we’re all hungry for, over the last maybe decade, is seeing people that aren’t accountable. The Epstein files are unfolding a full file of people who have never been held accountable. I call them like I see them, and watching her get grilled — and she didn’t do well for a while, but this hearing, she really messed up, because in addition to spending $220 million, she hired a company of a Republican consultant who had incorporated five days prior, like, who are you entrusting this money? And it sounds a little bit like a favorable relationship. I’m just happy someone’s being held accountable, and I hope we continue to hold people accountable.”

Navarro then said it was “ridiculous” of Trump to “help her save face to give her some elegant exit” with a new title as “special envoy” for the Western hemisphere.

Behar then shared her theory, saying, “In the words of The Godfather, you won’t see her no more!”

Navarro also predicted, “The photographs will be great!” She also got the last word on the matter and said, “Bye, Felicia! Don’t let the door hit you where the good Lord split you.”

The View, weekdays, 11a/10c, ABC

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