The View might currently be on summer hiatus, but that isn’t stopping cohost Ana Navarro from speaking out about the latest headlines. This time, she took to social media to issue her criticism of Donald Trump and deliver a message to one of his picks for this year’s Kennedy Center Honor recipients.
On Wednesday (August 13), the Kennedy Center revealed that this year’s honorees would be disco queen Gloria Gaynor, country star George Strait, the members of the rock band KISS (Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley), and actors Sylvester Stallone and Michael Crawford.
In a caption posted on Instagram, the cohost pleaded with Gaynor to decline the award on principle, writing, “A few years ago, I got to briefly meet @gloriagaynor at a concert in Miami. She gifted me a keychain that belted out “I Will Survive”, when you pressed it. Let’s just say, during first Trump term, I pressed it til it ran out of batteries. Yesterday, Trump announced he picked her to receive a Kennedy Center Honor, which he plans to host. Look, the woman is a goddess and deserves all the flowers that come her way. But I wish she wouldn’t accept an award from the hands of a man who has attacked the rights and history of women, people of color and LGBTQ. The gay community in particular, helped turn her signature song into an anthem. Trump is a stain on the prestige and significance of the KCH. Don’t do it, Gloria!” The signature anthem she referred to is, of course, “I Will Survive.”
Navarro previously criticized Trump’s announcement that he would be hosting the awards show, along with reports that Trump was considering renaming the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after his own wife, Melania Trump. (Earlier in the week, Trump seemingly confirmed the latter by writing on his social media page, “GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS.”)
In a post, Navarro wrote of that news, “In this week’s episode of ‘Camelot vs Scam-a-lot,’ The Trumps envy of the Kennedys, has no bounds. First, Melania tried to dress like Jackie at the inaugural. They destroyed the Kennedy Rose Garden at the White House and turned it into a concrete patio, full of yellow phallic umbrellas. Then, they said they were gonna name an opera hall at the Kennedy Center after Melania. And now, he’s destroying the Kennedy Center Honors. I would not be surprised if he puts his ugly mug on the medals. History will never regard them like it does the Kennedys. Never.”
On The View, Navarro, a longtime member of the Republican party, has been consistently critical of Trump. In fact, she was reportedly one of the cohosts who pushed back against the network brass after a suggestion that they tone down anti-Trump rhetoric on air earlier this year. The Daily Beast reported in May that she responded to the suggestion by insisting that The View‘s audience specifically tuned in to hear their perspectives on political matters. Either she or one of her fellow cohosts (Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin) reportedly said, “This is what our audience wants. Isn’t it gonna look kind of bad if we’re all of a sudden not talking about politics?’” and called the request “silly.”
Trump’s administration suggested that The View could be “pulled off air” after Behar criticized Trump for being jealous of Barack Obama after Trump accused the former president of “treason” while changing the subject from a journalist’s question about his administration’s controversial handling of the files for convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislane Maxwell. The comment came after CBS’s cancellation of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, which the network attributed to financial considerations but has been widely attributed to political motivations, since host Stephen Colbert was and remains a vocal critic of Trump and CBS’s parent company was then awaiting federal approval of a merger.