Abby Huntsman, new co-host of The View, has a record of excusing bigotry and shilling for Trump

Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

Update (8/9): Mediaite is reporting that Huntsman is officially leaving Fox News to co-host The View.

On July 23, HuffPost reported that Fox News’ Abby Huntsman, currently a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, is in talks with ABC to join the network’s daytime talk show The View, a favorite target of right-wing media. In response, a Fox News source told HuffPost that the agency that represents Huntsman “is actually in breach of the contract and is not even in the appropriate time window to shop Abby to another network.” 

During her time at Fox News, Huntsman has accumulated a record of incendiary conservative commentary. She has helped shill for Trump, including defending his racist views and repeated lies; pushed racist views and falsehoods of her own; and attacked the media. Here are some of Huntsman’s comments and actions:

On race

On ICE and immigration

Shilling for Trump

Backing often-misleading right-wing media narratives

On race

On ICE and immigration

Shilling for Trump

Backing often-misleading right-wing media narratives

  • Huntsman claimed that Fox News “definitely do[es] treat women well” by giving her and others “opportunities to reach our full potential.”
  • Huntsman baselessly reported that “$70 million of taxpayer money was wasted on food-stamp fraud” in 2016; she later apologized for the report.
  • Huntsman defended Trump's conspiracy theory of rampant voter fraud in the 2016 election by claiming that a North Carolina statewide audit showed that “some irregular voting did occur.” While Huntsman’s claim is true, she failed to mention that the audit concluded that most of these were honest mistakes and that “the state’s elections are sound and virtually fraud-free.” 
  • Huntsman endorsed the idea of drafting 16-year-old children into the military so they can “learn respect [and] learn how to be a good citizen.”