AUSTIN, Texas – What would Barbara Walters think of "The View" today?
Fox News Digital asked Susan Page, Washington bureau chief for USA Today and author of "The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters," what the late legendary broadcaster would now think of the ABC daytime program Walters created.
"Her concept of ‘The View’ would be women of different generations with different perspectives," Page told Fox News Digital at the Texas Tribune Festival earlier this month. "So she was pretty careful when she controlled who was on ‘The View,’ to have women of color on ‘The View,’ women with conservative points of view, because I think she thought that made for a more interesting conversation."
"One thing she would like about ‘The View’ today is that it is so relevant in our politics. It is a place that presidents and candidates go to, to make their cases to voters," Page said.
While the show always tackled the news of the day during Walter's tenure, "The View" has become a political lightning rod in the Trump era. Conservatives have called out the program that purportedly represented all points of view, but in recent years it has not had a pro-Trump co-host at the table.
"I think that the rise of Donald Trump has created some real difficulties in conversations where you want to have all points of view. And I think that's a show that has struggled with that, as have some others," Page said.
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Page stressed that Trump supporters should be fairly represented not just on "The View" but across the media landscape.
"If 40 or 45% of Americans at a minimum are gonna vote for Donald Trump, it is important to try to listen to the people who are going to vote for Trump and understand where they're coming from because that represents a huge part of the American population," Page told Fox News Digital.
Walters launched "The View" back in 1997 and served as a co-host for 17 seasons ahead of her official retirement from television in 2016.
"The View" is now hosted by Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro, all of them outspoken Trump critics.
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Page spoke about what inspired her to write about the journalism trailblazer.
"For women journalists, no one has been a more iconic figure than Barbara Walters," Page said. "That's true for women in TV broadcast journalism, it's true for women in print journalism, like myself, as well. And there was no real biography of Barbara Walters ever written, and I thought she deserved one."
Throughout her decades-long career, Walters repeatedly made history, first becoming the first female co-host of NBC's "The Today Show," later becoming the highest paid news anchor ever when she joined ABC News.
"If you grew up watching Barbara Walters, it wouldn't occur to you that a woman couldn't do big interviews, couldn't interview presidents and prime ministers and despots and murderers, and it also wouldn't occur to you that a woman couldn't make as much money or more than her male colleagues," Page said.
Walters died in 2022 at age 93.
