The View Goes All In Against Lindsey Graham’s Sister

When your goal is to keep your audience whipped up into a perpetual state of outrage and fear, you treat the mundane and the routine as an egregious breach of norms with questionable legality. That’s exactly what happened on ABC’s “bona fide news program” The View this week when Joy Behar and Sunny Hostin clutched their pearls over Darline Graham getting appointed as a South Carolina senator following the death of her brother, Lindsey Graham.

Let’s get the fact-check out of the way early so that we can see just how truly ridiculous and manipulative their outrage was.

The text of the 17th Amendment makes it clear that state governors (if allowed by their legislatures) have the authority to appoint temporary senators to fill in and represent the state before a special election for a formal successor:

When vacancies happen in the representation of any State in the Senate, the executive authority of such State shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies: Provided, That the legislature of any State may empower the executive thereof to make temporary appointments until the people fill the vacancies by election as the legislature may direct.

“I don’t love it. I don’t love it,” Hostin proclaimed, even though she was wholly supportive of Vice President Kamala Harris being handpicked to replace President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket without winning a single primary state.

Ignoring how it’s been common practice by both parties for decades to have relatives appointed to their loved one’s seat upon their death, Behar and Hostin suggested Republicans were being hypocritical and equated Graham to a DEI hire benefitting from nepotism:

BEHAR: It’s – this the very definition of a DEI?

HOSTIN: Correct! Correct! It’s everything that the Republican Party stands against! Everything! Everything! It’s DEI. Nepotism. All these things thrown in together.

Hostin was particularly upset that Graham was a doctor and suggested that somehow disqualified her from being a senator. “I think the experience does matter. And while she is a certified optician and while she has done great work in that field, I don’t think that she should be representing the people of South Carolina in the U.S. Senate. I just don’t,” she proclaimed.

Sunny Hostin attacks South Carolina for Darline Graham being their first female senator, and says there’s something “fundamentally wrong” with the state. She suggests doctors can’t be senators.
She and Joy Behar call the appointment “the very definition of a DEI [hire]” and an… pic.twitter.com/MxaSry6HAS

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 15, 2026

Not including Graham, there were four doctors serving in the U.S. Senate, all of them Republicans: John Barrasso (WY), Rand Paul (KY), Bill Cassidy (LA), and Roger Marshall (KS). There have also been 54 senators who have either studied and/or practiced medicine throughout the Senate’s history.

Yet, in the same segment, they suggested President Obama was qualified to be a senator since he was a community organizer:

BEHAR: Obama was a community organizer, like that and they gave him a lot of crap for that.

HOSTIN: And he was qualified to be in the Senate.

Behar was appalled by the revelation that Graham was her own person and may not think like her brother: “But we do not know her positions on abortion, foreign policy, or healthcare. … Just because she’s your sister doesn’t mean she agrees with you.”

This would be true for anyone appointed and not just Graham. So, was Behar coming out against the completely constitutional process of temporary appointments?

Additionally, there was no indication that Graham was seeking to run to keep the seat.

Sara Haines calls out Behar and Hostin. Haines notes that relatives being appointed to seats when a lawmakers has passed is a common practice by both sides. She also notes such appointments mean the voters of a state get someone who can represent the in a similar way to who they… pic.twitter.com/V6mUvIBazU

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 15, 2026

Ultimately, this showed that Behar and Hostin were more interested in stoking fear and outrage among their audience than in ensuring that the citizens of South Carolina were properly represented. Then again, Hostin did lash out, claiming something was “fundamentally wrong” with the state because Graham was their first female senator, so she likely didn’t care about their well-being.

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Nicholas C. Fondacaro is the associate editor for the Media Research Center and NewsBusters.