‘The View’ host Alyssa Farrah Griffin welcomes first child
“The View” co-host Alyssa Farrah Griffin has welcomed her first child, a baby boy, with husband Justin Griffin.
Former Trump press secretary Alyssa Farrah Griffin went on maternity leave this week from her current job as host of “The View,” and her seat was replaced by Republican reality TV star Savannah Chrisley.
Chrisley, 28, first appeared on the national stage in 2014 with her parents Todd and Julie Chrisley on the USA Network reality show Chrisley Knows Best.
Chrisley rose from a teenage reality TV heiress to one of the most prominent conservative voices of her generation after her parents were jailed on fraud and tax evasion charges in 2023.
“The View,” now America’s No. 1 daytime talk show, shed its dogfight reputation over the past decade as its co-hosts, the brainchild of Barbara Walters, became more collegial and its producers leaned more into its political past. The show’s “Hot Topics” segment feels more like a coffee clutch between close friends than a talk show feud.
Chrisley seemed comfortable during the four-day stint. She weighed in on the backlash surrounding the new Netflix documentary Reality Check, about Tyra Banks’ alleged behavior on the 2000s reality show America’s Next Top Model, and revealed that parts of her family’s own TV experience were fabricated by producers.
The only notable spat was when Chrisley claimed that New York progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was “also the Democratic nominee in the next election” following the congresswoman’s foreign policy blunder at last weekend’s Munich summit. She was also reprimanded by legal hawk Sunny Hostin for saying President Trump is not a racist.
Deadline’s exclusive Feb. 4 announcement that Chrisley was among the invitees for the fill-in guest hosting gig drew boos from left-leaning View fans and boos from the MAGA world. Her four-day appearance on “The View” drew similar reactions, including a surprising praise from Joy Behar, a frequent Trump critic who held court on Friday.
“But I think today is the last day, right?” Behar said on Friday, February 20, before declaring, “Right now, at this point, you never know.” Chrisley in turn thanked Behar and co-hosts Sunny Hostin, Sarah Haines and Ana Navarro for “giving me a seat at the table.” Whoopi Goldberg is always absent from Friday episodes.
How Savannah Chrisley found a seat at ‘The View’ table
In 2014, the complex family relationship of Todd and Julie Chrisley was first chronicled in “Knows Best” along with their five children (Grayson, Chase, Savannah, Lindsay, and Kyle) and their paternal grandmother, “Nanny Faye.”
The show followed the family’s lavish lifestyle in Atlanta and then Nashville, peppered with the one-liners from patriarch Todd Chrisley that made the Southern series a favorite of cable fans.
In 2017, during the first term of the Trump administration, Arizona Sen. John McCain’s eldest daughter Meghan McCain joined “The View” as a conservative co-host. After Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020, McCain completely left the committee the following year.
After an extensive hosting search, executive producer Brian Teta and The View staff were led to frequent guest host Alyssa Farrar Griffin in August 2022. Once President Trump’s first-term communications director, she left the White House after the events at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Navarro, a former View contributor, was also named an official co-host. Two months earlier, in June 2022, Chrisley’s parents and reality TV stars were found guilty of conspiracy to defraud community banks, defraud the IRS, and commit tax evasion. The Chrisleys reported to their respective federal prisons on January 17, 2023.
Chrisley advocated for his release at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July 2024, and the couple was later granted a full pardon by President Trump last May.
After Trump’s re-election in November 2024, Chrisley hinted at the possibility of a U.S. Senate race in Tennessee in the summer of 2025. After her parents were released from federal prison on May 28, she returned to television on “The Chrisleys: Back to Reality,” which aired in September.
Joy Behar to Savannah Chrisley: “We all love you so much”
Chrisley’s hosting sparked a backlash from fans in the comments on The View’s social media pages, with some boycotting the show until the following week. “Next week I’m off until Savannah is no longer on the table!” one Chrisley critic said on Instagram.
The Unlocked podcast host responded on Instagram, telling “those who sent me hate” that she listened and chose love instead, “because true tolerance is not just for the opinions you agree with, but for the opinions you don’t agree with.”
On the Friday, February 20th episode, Chrisley revealed that he told his father that Behar was his favorite. Behar then told Chrisley: “You were such a kind and gentle person. We all love you. We’re happy to have you here.” Chrisley will be followed by fellow conservatives Amanda Carpenter, The View host Elisabeth Hasselbeck and Abby Huntsman. Sheryl Underwood, former co-host of “The Talk” on CBS, will also be on the panel.
If the show adds a new co-host later this year, will Chrisley be seen on a more permanent basis soon?
Contributor: Saman Shafiq, USA TODAY; Jennifer Sangalang, USA TODAY Network
