Two co-hosts of “The View,” Ana Navarro and Sunny Hostin, were abruptly pulled from the set on live television on Friday morning after testing positive for the coronavirus, minutes ahead of a live in-studio interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Joy Behar, another co-host of the show, announced that they had contracted breakthrough cases despite being fully vaccinated. None of the hosts were wearing masks on set, but members of the live studio audience were all masked.
“Ana and Sunny, at the last minute, we realized they tested positive for Covid,” Ms. Behar said. Ms. Harris, who was in the building preparing to come onstage, later appeared remotely on the program from another room. But her appearance was truncated.
“I know they’re fine, but it really does speak to the fact that they’re vaccinated and vaccines really make all the difference, because otherwise we’d be concerned about hospitalization and worse,” Ms. Harris said, speaking from a remote studio with what appeared to be an iPhone headphone on her ear.
After the positive cases were announced, Ms. Behar and another co-host, Sara Haines, were the only hosts left on set (Whoopi Goldberg, another host, was off on Friday). They took questions from the audience to fill the program while the Secret Service tried to find a way for Ms. Harris to safely participate in the planned interview.
The announcement of the positive cases came minutes after the hosts had been discussing the importance of getting vaccinated and after they had promoted Ms. Harris’ appearance as her first “in-studio” interview since taking office.
Ms. Harris’ appearance on “The View” had long been planned and was one of only a handful of television interviews she has participated in since taking office. But the timing was not ideal for a vice president whose portfolio includes immigration issues, but who had hoped to use the opportunity to make an announcement about a new broadband investment set to reach more than 3 million schoolchildren.
It came as the administration’s handling of Haitian migrants at the border prompted outrage among Democrats and called into question President Biden’s decision to swiftly deport thousands who had been arriving en masse at a small Texas border town.
Critics have called the aggressive tactics of Border Patrol racist and have urged the president to stop flying the Haitians out of the country.
During her appearance on Friday, Ms. Harris acknowledged that the images of Border Patrol agents on horseback, some waving their reins while pushing migrants back into the Rio Grande, “evoked images of some of the worst moments of our history, where that kind of behavior has been used against the Indigenous people of our country, has been used against African Americans during times of slavery.”
But she avoided a question about whether the administration would halt all deportation of Haitians at the Texas border and allow them to apply for asylum.
“We have to do more in supporting Haitians who are returning to the island, returning to Haiti,” Ms. Harris said. “We have got to do more to support Haiti in terms of its needs to get back up and recover, in terms of the natural disasters.”
She also noted that the Haitian government is still in disarray and in the process of rebuilding after the president was assassinated. As a neighbor, “the U.S. has to help,” she said.
A spokeswoman for the vice president, Sabrina Singh, said in a statement that Ms. Harris had no contact with the hosts before the show and that “her schedule today will continue as planned.”
A spokeswoman for “The View” did not immediately respond to a request for comment about why the co-hosts received their test results only after appearing on set.
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