The fallout from The View‘s dramatic COVID test fiasco continues. Vice President Kamala Harris‘ staff is reportedly deeply concerned by the chaos on last week’s episode, per CNN.
Last Friday, The View made major headlines when co-hosts Ana Navarro and Sunny Hostin were ushered off stages mere seconds before Vice President Harris was scheduled to join the ladies in-studio. At the time, Joy Behar announced on air that both women had tested positive for COVID-19. While both Hostin and Navarro have revealed that the tests were false positive, the debacle was national news, and it seems Harris’ staff is not too pleased with how it went down.
Sources have revealed to CNN that Harris’ office is concerned with The View, suggesting the show was not entirely forthcoming with their testing procedures ahead of the show.
“One of the people explained that Harris’ office required the hosts of The View to take a PCR test within 24 hours of the interview. That person said that a representative of the ABC talk show suggested the night before Harris’ appearance that the tests had come back negative,” CNN reports.
While The View co-hosts reportedly test for COVID-19 twice a week, the women underwent another rapid PCR test on Thursday in preparation for Harris’ arrival. Per CNN, “Harris and her staff didn’t learn the truth until the dramatic moment on live television when co-hosts Sunny Hostin and Ana Navarro were abruptly pulled from the set.”
CNN also reports that ABC News President Kim Godwin was in attendance that day, and was “irked and embarrassed” by the situation. Executive producer Brian Teta made statements on air when the show returned on Monday, theGrio previously reported.
“It was just an unbelievable set of circumstances, and we found out moments before we came back on the air,” he shared. “In that moment, all I could think of was that we had to keep the hosts safe and we had to keep the vice president safe, she could not walk out no matter what.”
Teta went on to apologize to both Navarro and Hostin, as their (false) medical information was awkwardly revealed live on air to millions of viewers. Hostin also had the chance to speak her peace, sharing there are “real life” ramifications to moments like those.
She explained, “it was really uncomfortable for my results to be released publicly before I even knew what was going on, before they were verified, before I was tested again and again, and there are real life ramifications when things like that happen.”
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