‘The View’: Sunny Hostin Gives Her Take After Attending Trump Trial In-Person

Donald Trump‘s criminal trial in New York had a special guest in the audience: The View star Sunny Hostin. Hostin, who has a background as a prosecutor, attended the trial on Thursday and shared her findings with her cohosts on Friday morning — with some interesting views about the matter.

After offering her thoughts on what it was like seeing him in person for the first time — “I didn’t realize he was that orange,” she said in all seriousness, adding that it was a “shocking” shade — she went on to critique his behavior.

“Let me set the stage because I think people that haven’t been in the courtroom don’t understand the gravity of it… You’ve got this very large courtroom — it’s an older courtroom. You’ve got an ‘In God We Trust’ seal right next to the American flag… the New York State flag, a judge presiding with gray hair right in between these flags, and then in front of them a former sitting president in front of all that for the first time in U.S. history,” she explained. “Unlike any defendant sitting in the courtroom that I’ve ever seen, he’s stretching out, he’s fist-pumping with attorneys, he’s stretching, took a long nap. Most defendants do not do that. They are instructed to sit there, pay attention, look with some humility.”

Hostin also said she found the jury makeup to be “striking” because “there were several lawyers” and “there are many more women on the jury than men.” She also praised those jurors for being actively involved with the daily proceedings, saying, “I’m talking notes and everything.”

When it came to the testimonies of the day, including those of Stormy Daniels and two female former Trump administration officials, Hope Hicks and Madeline Westerhaul, Alyssa Farah Griffin piped in with her thoughts, explaining why she believes the salacious details Daniels shared about her alleged sexual encounter with Donald Trump will help his case — “They want her to seem trashy juxtaposed to those two women who genuinely have nothing but good things to say about Donald Trump,” Griffin said. She also explained at length why other star witnesses of the prosecution will potentially be problematic before Hostin reclaimed her time and demanded to be heard.

“Does anyone want to hear my opinions on what I saw?” Hostin said, to audible crowd laughter. “I spent all that time in the courtroom!”

“The one thing I will say about Stormy is at the end of the testimony… Trump’s lawyers argued for a mistrial based on the salacious stuff Daniels said — that they didn’t use a condom, and particularly Trump was very upset about that — and he said, ‘Your client and even in your opening statement, you said the encounter didn’t occur. Your client maintains that it didn’t occur. Of course, the prosecution had to bring her up on the witness stand to talk about the fact that the sexual encounter [occurred] and the details,'” Hostin explained.

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