‘The View’ Co-Host Abby Huntsman Defends President Trump’s ‘Executive Time’ in Heated Argument

Abby Hunstman was incensed when her co-hosts on The View mocked President Trump and his schedule on Tuesday.

The president’s day-to-day schedules from the last three months recently leaked, showing how those inside the White House blocked out his time. The internal schedule, published by Axios, shows a lot of hours designated as “executive time.” This is understood to be personal time for the president, with no distinct purpose or quota. The co-hosts of The View laughed about this revelation on Tuesday, although new cast member and former Fox News host Huntsman was not pleased.

The segment began with Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar laughing about the descriptions of executive time. The anonymous leaker noted that it could be used for watching TV, reading the news, using Twitter or making personal phone calls, among other things. After that, Sunny Hostin pointed out that it could be a national security risk to publicize the president’s schedule. Huntsman agreed, feeling that the leaker had something to answer for.

“I was raised on character and on loyalty, so when you work for someone, that matters,” she said.

After that, the rest of the table seemed to be in consensus that President Trump is not working hard enough. They compared his schedule to that of past presidents, and noted that his daily activities were not hard to track based on his use of Twitter. Even Meghan McCain, an outspoken republican who rarely agrees with Goldberg or Behar, condemned the president’s schedule, although she did list some possibly reasonable explanations before denying them. Finally, Huntsman jumped in to defend the president.

“Here’s the thing, though,” Huntsman said. “He never ran as a normal candidate. He never said, I’m going the go in and be presidential. He didn’t say, ‘I’m going to have the same schedule that every president had.’”

No one sided with Hunstman here. Her co-hosts all agreed that there seemed to be very little chance that the executive time was being used for hard work, and they felt that they did have a right to expect a certain amount of hours out of their president on a day to day basis.

“I think he’s become a public servant, the idea and onus would be that you get up in the morning and start working for the American people,” McCain said.

“It doesn’t take a genius to understand what he’s probably doing in the morning!” she went on. “He’s obsessed with cable news and he’s spending too much time — in my opinion — watching it.”

“My point is, why are we surprised?” Huntsman asked. “He’s been tweeting cable news since before he got into office.”

The discussion did not change any minds, though it did play out the debate between the president’s critics and those supporters who trust him implicitly.

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.