Abby Huntsman On Her Time At 'The View': 'A Lot More To That Story'

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All right, it is Wednesday, March 25th.

I am here with the lovely, the talented, Abby Huntsman.

Hello, Abby.

Hey, Brian, this is my favorite part of coming back to the view as the podcast.

Well, thank you very much.

I feel relaxed.

My favorite part of the view, too.

We're bringing Huntsman back, this is it.

We're bringing Huntsman back.

My sisters, when my dad was running for president in 2012, it was right when Twitter came out

and we were kind of having fun showing people behind the scenes.

And we, and it was right when Justin Timberlake had his song out.

I'm not aware of this.

Oh, and so we made a song, we're bringing, yes, and I don't think it went anywhere and

it was so embarrassing.

But it became, so when you were on the show, Herman Cain, do you, yes, I do.

Leave that in.

So for, this became iconic for fans of the show when you were here because they dug it

up when you were on the show.

So do you remember that old podcast Asia, the view that used to be on?

Yes.

Great.

Every show they would end by playing a clip of you doing that.

They would say, they would say, hit it Abby and then they would start doing that.

And your fans were the little Hunts.

That is, that is the cutest.

It was the best.

So now I've got three fans, depending on the day, which are my children.

Not really sure what to, I showed my kids a photo on Monday of the show.

Yeah.

And I said, oh, like what are you thinking?

My song goes, well, you look kind of pretty.

Oh.

And he just said, hey.

Kids say the darns things, though.

I love it.

How come will you?

My 11 year old Lily was saying, because I was mentioning who's on the show and we talk

about what my day is like before I go in and what's going to happen.

And I said, well, we have one of our older hosts coming back.

You remember Abby?

And she was very young when you were on the show.

And she's like, I do.

And she goes, that's so funny.

She left because she just had babies.

And now she's filling in for Alyssa, which is pretty, pretty great.

Very smart.

Yeah.

They're paying attention.

They're older.

It's funny.

Your kids get older.

And you don't think that you're getting older.

I know.

And you're like, wow.

It's been five years from me, too.

How did that happen?

Well, you're not aged today.

You're doing great.

Well, your turn makeup really helps.

Well, I took that for granted when I worked at the show every day.

And now that I'm mom, I look like, well, I'm in a garbage bag most days.

Let's talk about the fact that you're here.

So I have to say, you were the first person I called when I knew that I had a maternity

leave thing going on.

And because your family to the show, and everyone loved you, and we're just excited

to have you back.

Were you on the fence about it at all?

You said, yes, pretty quick.

No.

And it's funny.

I started my career, career, my internship when I was 19 years old at ABC.

Yeah.

At Good Morning America.

I would book cars in the middle of the night, and sometimes get yelled at because the

car wouldn't show up.

And it comes back to the person who booked them, like taking accountability in life with

something people don't do anymore.

But I worked those long hours, and ABC's always been in my home.

And so when I came back to host the view, I never thought that was ever going to be

a possibility.

And I fell in love with the team here.

The producers, the camera crew, same with Good Morning America, they're all still there

after all these years.

We're in a new building, but it's the same people in the last part.

And that's what people don't understand in television, you know, they're different chapters

of shows.

And when I was here, there were some different people here.

It was a different time.

But the producers, the staff, the camera crew, they've all been the same, and they are my

family.

And I adore them.

You were always lovely to work with.

And I think part of it is probably, I mean, you're a lovely person.

But also, I think because you did start by working in these kind of jobs, and you understand

what those jobs are, you understand what the people behind the scenes do, how hard they

work, and why they do it.

And I think that kind of informs, like how you treat people in life, really matters.

And I find we're very short term thinkers these days, you know, we're on social media,

we're always kind of thinking in the moment, we're not thinking long term about our lives.

And the way you treat someone when you're a 20 year old, interning, you don't know if

20 years later, you're going to end up working with that person.

Maybe your boss ends up working alongside you.

Maybe they're working for you.

You never know what happens in your life.

And it's so important to just treat people with respect, with kindness.

And that's what you've all done back to me on the show, and I find when you asked me

to come do it again, it's like I love being back with my family.

There were some hard times, though, during that chapter.

So that's why I was open and honest when I left, the air is much lighter now, as I say,

they're chapters and they're revolving doors at times of people that come in and they

go.

Well, you know, when you, as soon as you came, you announced you were coming back on,

I started to see the old articles come out and they were saying, you know, Abby left

because it's toxic.

And now she's back.

So what happened?

What they, I mean, what they don't know is how much I love you all, and I, I hope it's

reciprocal.

But even like your share floor with Good Morning America, I was just hugging my friends

from when I interned here at 19 years old and they're still here doing their job and

they love what they do.

I think often in media, they don't get the story completely correct.

I think that's fair to say about where you left.

And there was a lot more to that story and these are hard jobs.

There's no part.

Oh, my gosh.

This week has reminded me of that.

Oh, my goodness.

These are hard jobs, especially I have to say, being in the conservative seats on this

show is one of the hardest jobs in all of television.

There's no question about that.

And I think, you know, so there is a stressful part of it.

But that being said, but who you work with, it matters a lot and coming back in, like

I said, it really does feel like there's a love and more of a lightness.

Well, even seeing you and we'll be together, I was so nice the first day.

I know you do.

You always have, and it's fun, even joy.

We can think differently about the world or our politics, but I actually think in most

cases with Americans, there's a lot more that brings us together that's further apart.

We're just at a time when we have to fight.

We have to be angry at each other for everything.

But, you know, joy would be, the cast is great.

And I'm having a lot of fun right now.

I forgot, though, my gosh, it's, this shows hard.

The topics are hard, Trump makes it impossible to sometimes do our job.

We were laughing about it because, you know, when you were here, we were talking about Trump

every single day.

You were here in the first Trump term and really one of the most heightened times to be

on the view.

You're part of that cover at the New York Times when we were the most important political

television show.

I have that hanging in my wall.

I have it on mine too.

And I was so pregnant, I look that I'm like, I think it was like a week before I delivered

my twins.

I mean, finally, I make it to a cover of a magazine I'm literally about to pop.

You look great, but it's, I mean, it's funny because when, you know, we were talking,

when you were here on Monday, the first topic we did or the second topic we did was talking

about Trump's reaction to Robert Mueller.

And I don't think we've mentioned.

I thought you guys were playing a prank on me.

I don't think we've mentioned his name since you left, but I talked about it for every

single day.

The Mueller report.

And then the next time I come back, we led with a Mueller story, which by the way,

condolences to his family.

Yeah.

But just in general, media across the board, I think it's, it's hard for a lot of people

to get the story right to, um, to cover someone like, whether you love Trump or you hate

Trump, it's, it's, it's, it's just a really divisive and, and sensitive time.

These topics aren't easy.

They're not easy to talk about at the dinner table with your family, let alone coming

out in front of millions of people on camera and in an unscripted way.

Yeah.

And I find now when I'm coming back to the show, I'm in a different phase of my life and

we've talked about this before.

All I want to do is be honest about how I'm feeling.

I don't represent the Republican Party.

I don't represent any person.

I'm here as me.

I'm here as Abby.

No agenda.

Yeah.

And I think there are a lot of people out there that don't necessarily fit in one box

or another box.

They don't check every single of the, you know, the boxes of a party.

Um, I just want to be myself.

How have you changed on politically in the time in the last five years?

I mean, cause the world's changed so much.

I mean, COVID and everything that's happened afterwards.

You know, you were always right of center, but where are you now?

Have you, have your politics gone in one direction or another?

Oh, I'm, I'm so much more secure on what I believe and what I'm, what I care about

and in my politics.

Um, but I feel very lost in terms of where I fit politically.

Right.

And I, and I speak for myself, but I think there are a lot of other people that are kind

of in a wilderness of like I, I don't have anyone that represents me right now.

Right.

I want to feel inspired.

I want someone that I can have my kids listen to at the State of the Union.

They came in.

I was watching and I, I turned it off because I wasn't sure which direction it was going

to go in.

And I, I hate that feeling.

I was raised in a family where, you know, we're proud of this country.

We serve this country and, you know, you've got to be a role model when you have these

roles.

If you're a politician and you're, and you're trying to, you know, bring this country

together.

I'm so desperate for a leader to come in and just be that person that I can be excited

about.

Are you hopeful for it?

Do you think it's going to happen?

This is something we've talked about for years is, is, is eventually are we getting

moved out of where we are now and is the Republican Party going to look something more similar

to what it used to look like?

Is the Democratic Party going to look more similar to what it used to be?

What do you see?

I think we're getting closer to it when 2016 hit, it was at the height and Trump just

nailed his timing because the country was ready.

They wanted someone that gave it back to the Liberals and he has given them that.

I now think people are feeling exhausted, they're feeling tired by it.

And as much as moderates come across as weak and boring, they actually get things done.

Yeah.

So we talk about the government shutdowns.

I was thinking about it because we're still in a shutdown.

It was New Gingrich.

You had the first government shutdown back in 1994.

At that point, it was like a shock to the system.

The markets, the bonds, everything was going crazy.

And now no one cares, doesn't even move.

You care if you're not getting a paycheck, but it's like this has become so normal.

It's another Tuesday for us.

Yes, I hate that.

I hate that.

I hate that.

I hate that.

I hate that.

I hate that.

Be a shock to the system anymore because we use to crazy this every single day.

So I'm sort of a, I'm a mixed brand.

I find I'm conservative on things.

I'm libertarian.

Mm-hmm.

On a lot of stuff.

I, we have so many problems here at home, infrastructure to name a big one.

Right.

But we're not even focused on.

What we've been talking about the war.

And I'm liberal on some other thing.

It's been a really heavy week with topics.

We've been talking about the war and the shutdown and things like that.

But what I've appreciated is something you've brought, which is not new to you, but framing

everything really through the, your experiences as part of a military family and what that

means.

And you've mentioned you have brother serving.

How does that inform your opinion about what's going on right now?

Well, it's personal is real.

Yeah.

It's real.

And when you get alerts on your phone, when you have someone you love that's serving,

it's different.

I call it.

Yeah.

It does.

And I wake up every day and you just hope that our men and women are okay.

You hope that they're getting through this because they're not making the political decisions.

And I was trying to talk about that on the show today, which is you had a two minute sound

bite.

You don't always get to say it exactly as you want to say it.

But they are doing what they are told and they are the most badass military in the entire

world.

And that is what makes this country still the best that has ever existed.

So the news hit you differently when Trump speaks it hits you differently.

And it's that much more important to feel like we have a plan to feel like if we're going

into Iran, which we can all agree like, yes, we want a safer country.

But what is our strategic plan?

When are we getting out of here?

What are we doing there?

I want them to come home safe and I want us to move on to make this country the best

that it can be.

It's something I've talked about.

I'm sorry to get emotional.

No, of course.

There are just so many military families where it's like, it's not just getting another

headline news.

And it's terrifying.

Yeah.

I can't imagine if I had someone that was that close to me serving right now.

Yeah.

So it's hard because on one end, it's like, well, I don't agree with that decision.

Right.

But you have to move for the success.

But I also love what they're doing.

And it's hard to get that right on the show.

But that's sort of what I've been trying to do.

It's something that I mean to a person, everyone at our table wants the US and the US military

to be successful.

That doesn't mean they're not frustrated by the decisions that are being made.

And but they're never rooting for failure.

They're never rooting for, you know, yeah, it's not that.

But it's important.

You're right.

As we talk about these heavy topics, so much of our of America is military.

They're veterans.

Yeah.

They're in it right now.

They're a mother.

It's yesterday.

And an audience member asked to come back and talk to you and thank you for talking about

it.

She was a veteran.

It's just part of your life.

It's part of your life.

And I think we're, we've moved a bit away from how important service is in this country.

And like when Trump tweeted about Robert Mueller, I'll bring him up again.

He was a man of service.

You know, you can agree with him.

We're not agree with him.

But I am so desperate for someone to leave this country that shows that respect again

for people that give their life to make this country better.

I don't care if you're Republican or Democrat.

This country so needs unity.

We need that sort of inspiration to come back.

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Well, one thing I was appreciated about you is your optimism and your general belief

that people are good.

Maybe too much so.

I was raised more and sometimes I can be naive.

People tell me that.

You're too nice and you give people too much credit at first.

I've made mistakes by doing that, but you learn over time sort of ahead of...

Talk about it.

I don't want to lose my kindness and I also don't want to lose always assuming people

are good.

Yes.

Because I do think there's goodness in everyone.

It's just a matter of whether they find that or not.

Absolutely.

Speaking of that, you were raised in the Mormon church.

This is something that you've talked about a lot when you were here, but you left when

you were an adult.

Now, Mormonism is kind of all over pop culture, you know, strange way now.

How do you feel about how Mormons are portrayed in the media?

Do you feel like it gives an accurate representation?

Do you feel like...

How does the church feel about it?

What do you know?

I told you the church likes it.

No.

One bit.

Yeah.

At all.

I think they would rather...

None of those shows are aired.

I can see why it's people's fascination because it's like you want to know what's going

on there.

It's a strict religion and something that whenever I meet someone who's been in the

church that's left, it's like an unspoken understanding in a bond.

It's a little bit like Scientology where like there are things that you've experienced

that you know the other one has.

And I respect the church so much.

There's so many wonderful Mormons and I made the decision to leave the church.

I've married my husband who's not Mormon, but I do...

I feel a bit for, by the way, I watch the shows and they're very entertaining and they're

fun to watch, but I do feel for them sometimes because when you're raised Mormon as

I was, you're a bit more naive.

You know, you're not raised in the Upper East Side of New York City or in Brooklyn.

It's not like you're seeing the world in the same way.

We have very strict rules.

You're not able to drink.

You're not able to have caffeine, no stimulation, no sex, none of those things.

So you put people on a reality show in their 19-20 and it's like it's a whole new world.

I remember I moved to West Philly for college and I was, again, my naive self thinking

everyone's good and it's all great and my eyes were opened very quickly to a different

world.

My wife grew up in a very rural part of Virginia and went to NYU for college and it was her

first time ever going to a city, really, when she came to college.

The story she'll tell me that she was the same kind of naive at hey and she has none of

that now.

But at the time, I remember she thought Broadway was like one theater in the city.

She definitely went on a couple of dates with a girl without realizing there were dates

just like she's paying for dinner.

This is nice.

I think I probably did some similar things.

I remember in West Philly because there's a real homeless population there and it's sad.

But I always felt so sad for their situations.

I remember opening up my person.

I would give him a dollar or whatever and my friends would say, you can't just open your

purse like that.

Downtown Philly.

People are, so I learned quickly but I remember there was a guy who had a needle in his arm

and told me he had to get back to the hospital and he needed to get a bus ticket.

So I gave him a couple dollars, whatever I had in my purse and then I was on a date a

few days later and the same person came up with the same story and I was thinking, well,

you know, I really want to believe all these stories are good and I want to help them.

I think it didn't want to hold back that.

And I still do.

But there is, when you grow up in these stricter religions, a bit in IFTAY and you have

to learn as you grow, like there were so many terms my husband had to teach me, like sexual

terms of like, I don't even know what any of this, still to this day, there are times

on the show where I'm like, I'm going to ask Joy later what this means because I have

no idea what they're talking about.

Joy's very good for the sex jokes.

That's right, though.

I'm still pretty innocent.

Yeah.

Well, you can't get the innocent and the Mormon out of the girl, even if they live.

Yeah.

It's part of your charm.

I think it's great.

Other things that happen on the show this week, we had the American Idol hosts on yesterday

and you were excited about this and I'm bringing this up because it's driving me absolutely

crazy.

There's so many things written about this show every single day.

And your job is so hard.

You know, the best thing about it is nobody wants it.

But the thing that always comes to me, but there's all these articles saying that Joy refused

to sit down with Carrie Underwood and walked off the show and it's making me nuts because

it's complete BS.

We had three guests.

I never put everybody out there.

You came to me and said, you love American Idol.

I love American Idol.

You were very excited to do this.

I put you in.

I listen to country all day every day.

This is probably one of my favorite books the week.

So thank you for letting me sit there.

I was told I have you in it.

I love it.

Yes.

It's one of the best shows on television.

So that is why you were in the segment.

Thank you for a life time experience I will never forget Brian.

There you go.

There you go.

So stop writing articles saying Joy was refusing to sit in the segment.

My goodness.

There are a lot of other things going on in the world that I'm more important.

No one's caring about that.

All right.

Alyssa, of course, is out on her maternity leave.

I'm so happy.

I'm so happy for her too.

And she's having a great time with the baby, but you know what it's like to have children

working at the view.

Do you have any advice for her on how to manage that?

It's like I'm clutching my necklaces.

These are my daughters that they gave me this morning.

It's a little gold charms.

They're my world.

They're my life.

And I actually texted Alyssa last night because when I did this show a few years ago, my

babies were three months.

Yeah.

Not even born yet some of the time.

And then Isabelle was one.

At home, it was a different situation.

Now I have three like six-year-olds and it's exhausting.

So I get home.

Like last night, I think I still got to do dinner, bedtime baths.

My head was just spinning.

I'm getting the rundown for today about Iran.

So I texted Alyssa yesterday.

I said, just FYI, get your sleep now because you used to go home and not have, you had

her dogs.

But it's going to be a new world when you get back here.

In a way, it's wonderful because when you get home, you kind of shut it off and you're

reminded of what's important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The other thing is they make you, they're sick all the time.

Yes.

I was sick for five years.

I have a cold now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that would have been hard doing the view every day being sick.

No, it's hard.

But it's joy always says that Barbara Walters used to tell her and tell everybody that this

is a show made for mothers because you can do it in the morning.

You can go home, spend time with the kids and do all that sort of stuff too.

But it was actually good for me when I was pregnant with the twins.

I have bad health anxiety.

And I think I really would have struggled not coming in here every day and being stressed

about the job and focused on the issues because I would have thought about my body something

wrong.

And the pregnancy went really fast for me.

Because everything goes fast.

Yeah.

I thought I was going to go on a labor on the air.

I'm shocked.

I didn't with all the stress we have every day with the topics.

I still remember.

I don't think I knew you were pregnant then, but you were pregnant while you were a lady

Gaga wearing the meat test.

You guys about killed me.

Well, you didn't know.

No one knew I was pregnant.

And you dressed me as lady Gaga on three different outfits that were skin tight and put me

in an egg.

Do you remember you had the models come?

They'd lift me in a costophobic.

That was my fault.

I'm sorry.

Me and egg.

Yeah.

And it was so hot in there.

And I was about to throw up everywhere.

I thought I might die.

I thought I might.

The heels were six inches tall.

Yeah.

Gosh.

You know what though?

I love the show.

It was so.

And the Halloween's are the best part of it.

We haven't done them in two years now.

People are furious.

You haven't?

There's some cold opens.

But we haven't done that.

I think my favorite still for you was getting blood dumped on you as Carrie.

That was the best.

Well, I want to do it.

I grew up doing acting.

So I love the stuff.

That's right.

Still my love.

I'm still thinking about doing Broadway one of these days.

I would be amazing.

I'm going to go audition.

My daughters are obsessed.

It's all they do.

My older daughter Grace is in Chicago this weekend.

She's very excited for her.

I think they should go for it.

I think so too.

I think they should just go for the dreams.

They love it.

I have to say, coming back this week, it's still a dream to be back.

No.

It is.

I remember the last day when I told people I was leaving.

I walked out on set and you said, like, this will be one of the last times you're here.

And I really looked around the audience and I took it and I thought, you know, this is

a moment in time.

I don't know where I'm going to be in my next chapter and the chapter after that.

But I really want to take in how this feels.

The energy of the audience being able to sit at such an iconic table with iconic women.

It's something I don't take for granted.

I didn't take for granted.

Even coming this week, I still walk out and I'm like, take today in because this is special.

And we are lucky to get these opportunities.

I say it all the time.

Once a view host, always a view host, it's a very, I mean, careful what you wish for.

Well, there's a lot of them, but the truth is, yeah, good point.

There's a lot of them, but it's something that you guys have experienced and nobody else

on the planet knows exactly what it's like to be one of these 24 women.

And I mean, I'm sure people still, when they, they talk to you, bring up the view, right?

I mean, yeah, you've done plenty of other things, but it's who you are.

And even if they totally disagree with some of the things you've said, they're still,

like, a love for you in the show.

And Joy says she talks to the Trump voters of the casinos and she looks for them.

Yeah, this show is America.

Yes, we represent all different types of people living in this country.

Absolutely. Well, listen, we got a couple more shows this week and a lot of fun to be

had.

I don't know if I'm going to survive it, Brian.

You're on the weekend, you.

It's going to be great.

And then next year, it's our 30th anniversary.

So we'll find the reasons to get you back here for sure.

And congrats to you, Brian.

I'm just so thrilled for all your success.

Oh, the show's lucky to have you.

Thank you.

Well, it's a great team, as you said.

Like I'm lucky.

I'm on their shoulders.

Thank you for joining me today, Abby.

Abby will be with us the rest of the week, guest co-hosting.

Tomorrow, I'll be back here with Sarah Haynes, and we'll see you then.

This case, it's Brian.

Oh, hey, it's Bradman.

A hour before he died, he was on a phone arguing what's about him.

This might be a hit.

You want the truth?

Biggest one in the conviction.

In place of your rest.

We had a killer amongst us.

Murder at the U. Listen now.