The co-hosts of "The View" admitted on Monday that the Supreme Court made the right decision in their unanimous vote against removing former President Trump from the ballot in Colorado.
Co-host Sunny Hostin said it was the "right decision," but went on to criticize the justices for acting in a "partisan" way. She emphasized the concurring opinion written by Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who claimed the court went too far. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was nominated by Trump, also wrote her own concurring opinion that seemed to agree that the court ruled on more than it had to.
"They are saying the Supreme Court went too far here because they answered a question that wasn’t before them. The only question that was before this court was, can a state do this? Instead, what they did was they insulated all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office," Hostin said. "I have far too much hope that the court would be united in this and not overstep in favor of Donald Trump, and I think what we saw was a court where justices that behaved in a partisan manner and that disappointed me."
Co-host Sara Haines said she found it reassuring that Barrett somewhat agreed with Kagan, Jackson and Sotomayor because they talk about partisanship on the court frequently.
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"It didn’t surprise me. I started to gain faith as Sunny would tell us, like, this is going to get him," Haines said. "But seeing it, I now get the chaos which would ensue and I think it’s important when you don’t like the outcome, which I’m not saying I don’t, but that you look at the states that you would disagree with, and what they could do in turn."
Co-host Ana Navarro said she agreed with the SCOTUS ruling but made a point to clarify that the court did not rule on whether Trump was an "insurrectionist."
"I agree with this. I think it needs to be up to the voters. I think it was opening up a Pandora’s box, and one of the things that John Roberts said earlier was, you know, how do we know that then elections don’t end up being decided by just a few states?" she said, before arguing that Justice Clarence Thomas should have to recuse himself from cases dealing with Trump.
Co-host Whoopi Goldberg reacted to the ruling in the second segment and said that while it was "probably the right decision," she loathed the fact that Trump has been "normalized."
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"The thing that bothers me about this, and I know it’s probably the right decision, but I don’t like that we’ve normalized this man," she said. "It has really irritated the poo out of me that we have normalized him and his bad behavior. I get that the law says, listen, it would be really rough and it should be the Congress that makes these decisions, and yet that’s not how we have been acting."
Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump aide who's become one of his strongest Republican critics, said the decision was the right one, but not a "welcome one."
All nine justices ruled in favor of Trump in the case, which will affect the status of efforts in several other states to remove the likely GOP nominee from their respective ballots.
The court considered for the first time the meaning and reach of Article 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars former officeholders who "engaged in insurrection" from holding public office again. Challenges have been filed to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot in over 30 states.
"We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency," the Court wrote.
Fox News' Anders Hagstrom and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
