“The View” cohost wants kindness for 'good, decent people' who voted for Donald Trump, another 'profoundly disturbed' by election

Four of "The View" cohosts wore all black the day after the election. "We're doing what they didn't do," Ana Navarro said. "We're recognizing they won."

After years of sounding the alarm over a potential second-term Donald Trump presidency, the cohosts of The View confronted the sobering reality of his triumph during the 2024 election the morning after Americans headed to the polls.

Hours after Trump was officially projected to win enough electoral votes to win the contest against Vice President Kamala Harris, all six View cohosts joined the Hot Topics table Wednesday morning to break down the aftermath.

"My takeaway is that the system works. We live in a democracy. People spoke. This is what people wanted. I vehemently disagree with the decision that Americans made. But, I feel very, very hopeful that we have a democratic system in this country. We should value it, we should love it, we should protest if the situation arises that we need to protest — which, I'm sure it will," Joy Behar, 82, said at the top of the show. "It's been very difficult, but, boy oh boy, do we have a country if we can keep it."

Sara Haines, 47, agreed, urging audiences not to "say the system must be broken or that it was rigged" because their candidate of choice didn't win. "You say, 'it is what it is,' and you show up anyway," she continued, telling her colleagues that she'll now explore "how we can continue to fight for the people we care about" and that she feels emboldened standing "arm-in-arm" with people who agree with her — including the over 60 million people who turned out to vote for Harris, despite the VP likely losing the popular vote when all ballots are tallied in the coming days.

Conservative panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin, 35, who previously worked for Donald Trump's White House communications team, stressed that the outcome isn't the one that she wanted, but she still has faith in the American political system.

"We live in a democracy. I have my vote, millions of people who cast their votes did," she said. "Tens of millions of Americans — our friends, our neighbors, our family members — voted for Donald Trump. We disagree with him. I know we all do at this table, but they are good, decent people who are patriots and love this country. I can't speak to what drove them to the conclusion of being with him, but I think it's a moment for us to listen to each other, hear each other, express what our concerns are.... and also listen to people who are with him. This is a country that there is truly more that unites us than divides us. I know it doesn't feel like that for many people in this moment, but we need to bring down the temperature, the name-calling, the demonizing."

She also speculated that rural Americans felt that Democrats forgot about their needs in the current election cycle, and that Trump simply "spoke to them" stronger than Harris did.

Far less optimistic about the future, 56-year-old legal expert Sunny Hostin said she was "profoundly disturbed" by the election results.

"I think that in 2016 we didn't know what we would get from a Trump administration, but we know now. We know now that he will have almost unfettered power. I worry not about myself, actually, I don't worry about my station in life. I worry about the working class, I worry about my mother, a retired teacher. I worry about our elderly and their Social Security and Medicare. I worry about my children's future. I worry about my daughter, who now has less rights than I have," Hostin continued. "I'm profoundly disturbed that the 14th amendment of the Constitution did not prevent someone who participated in an insurrection from becoming President of the United States. I think that going forward, the convicted felon box on employment applications better be taken off. Because if you can be the President of the United States, you should not be prevented from employment in this country."

Related: See celebrities cast their votes in 2024 presidential election

She also said that, because of Harris' Black and Asian descent, as well as her marriage to a Jewish man, that votes communicated a "referendum of cultural resentment" in the end.

Republican cohost Ana Navarro added that, while she's disappointed, she has "no regrets" because she "worked hard as hell" to elect Harris.

"I worked hard as hell for Donald Trump not to be president. But today, unlike Donald Trump and his followers, I acknowledge that he won, I hope for the best for our country, and I make a commitment to our LGBTQ, to our immigrants, to our elderly, to our young girls, to the women, that we will not stop fighting," the 52-year-old observed. "Today we can be sad. Tomorrow, we stand up and we continue. We have every right as Americans because we love this country, because this is is the most exceptional country n the world, we have the right and the duty to speak up and denounce abuses of power and to be vigilant. I invite all Americans to do it. But, we're doing what they didn't do: We're recognizing they won."

Moderator Whoopi Goldberg, 68, closed the show's opening moments with a hopeful outlook for her fellow Americans.

"The thing I wanted to finish up with is, it's hard for some of us to hear that rhetoric, after 50 years. After 70 years. To hear that rhetoric coming back, to hear things that came out of people's mouths that we all decided as a public group we weren't gong to talk to each other that way. For me, when I hear that, I feel okay when I'm pissed at somebody who's talking down to somebody else. I'm alright with that. What I'm not alright with is trying to further wreck the country," the Oscar-winning Ghost actress said.

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"We're still here. When I got out of the car today.... I saw mailmen, people with their kids, I saw people walking around drinking what is the coffee stuff, Starbucks," she finished. "I saw people living their lives, and that's what we have to do."

Panelists of The View have long sounded alarms over Trump's second-term presidency, particularly in the run-up to the 2024 election. Griffin regularly used her platform on the show to give audiences insight into the dangers she said she witnessed while working under Trump in the White House, and even revealed on Tuesday morning that, for the first time in her life, she cast a ballot for a Democrat due to her concerns over her former boss.

Related: Sabrina Carpenter registers record number of new voters for 2024 election

"I’m speaking as a former senior aide to Donald Trump who knows him very well,” she said on Monday, issuing one final warning before Americans headed to the polls. "This is the most important election of our lifetimes because he is the most dangerous man to have ever sat in the American presidency. He can not go back."

The show also welcomed a revolving door of high-profile political guests to the Hot Topics table in recent weeks, including Chris Christie, Liz Cheney, Hillary Clinton, President Joe Biden, and Harris herself.

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC.