Sunny Hostin on Hypocrisy, Power, & Why Democrats Need to Stand Up

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All right, it is Monday, March 23rd. It is spring and I am here with Sunny. Hi, Brian. How are you doing?

I'm good.

You're standing a little better.

Well, I tried to rest my voice this weekend, but as you see the more I talk, the worse it goes.

All right, well, we're in a little spring break in a couple of weeks and hopefully that'll help.

All right, on the show today we talked about President Trump's response to Robert Mueller's death and you were very quick to call out with JD Vance.

It said last year he said that speeches protected in this country but celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk was grounds to be fired from a job.

You know, you heard a lot about that year about teachers coming under fire and really a lot of people.

I mean, I don't think it's a stretch to say we shouldn't be celebrating anybody's death, but there's definitely also a hypocrisy here.

Are you surprised that there's a double standard?

I'm not surprised coming from this administration, but I will say that I was repulsed.

Not only because I knew Bob Mueller, right?

I forgot he did.

Yeah, I knew Bob, but and he was such an honorable man.

You know, people like to throw around the word patriot. He was a true patriot to the point where a story that people don't know is that after he was the FBI director,

after he was a Marine who served in Vietnam, he actually called up Eric Holder, who was my old boss, who's Attorney General.

And at one point, just sort of headed the, used to kind of float around the Justice Department and just walk in and talk to line assistants, which are sort of the lowest tier of prosecutors.

And Bob Mueller, I don't know if he got bored. I don't know what happened, but he called and he said, uh, do you have, you know, a need for a line prosecutor.

And at that point, he was, had so much more experience and Eric Holder said, sure, you want to do homicide.

He was prosecuting, he was in the homicide division, which I rotated through.

He was a line prosecutor in the homicide division at the US Attorney's Office in DC prosecuting local crimes and basically never lost the case.

And made Washington DC a safer place.

Like just decided to do that, Princeton grad, you know, I think UVA law school and he's an alum of my office.

And like, I'm just shocked that more people don't know who he was at the Mueller report in a sense to find him.

But he was a damn good prosecutor and he was just an honorable honest person doing a job.

But I'm not, I'm not surprised that this president would stew to that level because that's sort of where he is.

I don't know if it was you or somebody brought it up on the show today that, you know, we saw this with Rob Reiner, we saw this with, with others.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is just, he just seems to no, no, no floor here.

It's just beneath the dignity of the office of the president of the United States.

I mean, imagine President Obama doing something like that.

You would never, no, and to that point, you can't even imagine it.

To that point, both President Obama and President George W. Bush.

Yes.

You know, obviously different times of the political while said lovely things about Mueller.

W, it was interesting because another fun fact that people don't remember historically is that, remember, a lot of Americans were being surveilled.

And all that information that they were getting on phones and that sort of thing was being sent to the FBI.

And FBI director Mueller at the time was like, this is something that I cannot abide by.

And he had, I think, two deputies stand by him and he wrote a resignation letter and went to the president and said, my FBI agents will not be doing something that's unconstitutional, will not be surveilling the American people.

And if you continue this process, I have my resignation letter in my pocket.

And George W. Bush stopped surveilling the American people, stopped that policy because of FBI director Mueller.

I mean, think about that.

So you can only hope that his legacy is a lot more than that.

I hope people know the stories that I know.

I hope they'll remember that.

And then the Treasury Secretary was on the Sunday shows talking about how, when asked to defend this comment, was talking about how we should feel empathy for all that president Trump and his family have been through.

Well, and in particular, he said, we should feel sorry for the president because he watched while his home at Mar-a-Lago was rated and FBI agents went through his wife's clothing.

First of all, Bob Mueller was not the FBI director at the time of that raid.

And second of all, the reason that his home was rated and his wife's things were looked through was because he kept classified information.

Which he took.

Class C denies it, but he took classified information reportedly allegedly and kept it in a bathroom at Mar-a-Lago.

There was an investigation into it.

And so why should we have empathy for that?

And it still doesn't warrant celebrating the death of anyone and in particular, a bronze star purple heart recipient.

Yeah.

All right.

So there's that.

There's that.

Also on the show today, we had New Jersey Senator Cory Booker.

One of my favorite guests.

He's always just terrific.

He's great. Cory's great.

What did you make of what he had to say today?

I believe that Cory has the type of temperament that we need.

But perhaps not the temperament that people want to see.

Right.

People want to see this like fighter.

They want to almost see a mirror image of President Trump.

Well, and we have seen versions of Cory doing that.

Senator Booker doing that.

We saw him do that when he gave that speech.

We have.

Yeah.

But you're right.

He, he, someone who believes in working across the aisle by partisan.

Yes.

And I think reconciliation.

And I think people want Democrats to do something.

Give me a vision of what you're going to do.

The Gavin Newsom kind of.

Yeah.

What are you going to do for us?

What are you doing now?

And really the response is that the Democrats are not in control of anything.

They're barely in, I mean, they're just, they're just not in control.

Where do you come down on this?

You want, is it worth it for the symbolism to hold the line, do you think?

I, I, I am one of those, um, that believes that you cannot capitulate to bullies.

Because if you give a bully your lunch money today, they will come back for it tomorrow.

The Democrats capitulated the last shutdown.

Um, and now here we are again, you know, the Republicans get in line.

Um, and Democrats don't.

And I think this is a fight worth fighting for.

I mean, you've got mass men murdering American citizens.

I think Democrats need to stand tentos down.

Yes, it's painful for people who can even afford to travel by air.

I would say a lot of people can't afford to travel by air.

But if you are one of the Americans that can afford to travel by air, then yeah,

it's going to, it's going to hurt for a while.

You're going to stand on long lines.

Yes, TSA agents need to get paid.

I think people that are, um, coming together and, and, and helping TSA agents.

I think that's a way to go more than the long lines.

It's the TSA agents.

Yeah, not getting paid.

I heard Elon Musk is willing to pay the TSA agents.

Well, hey, he's got a lot of money.

So maybe he should, he should do that.

But I do not think that the, um, Democrats, um, need to capitulate.

Use whatever little bit of power they have.

I mean, people forget that Harry Reid was the minority, um, leader in the Senate.

He got so much done as the minority leader.

So there are things and levers you can pull.

You have leverage when you're in the minority and the Democrats are just not wielding it effectively.

Uh, Senator Booker called President Trump an out of control president,

and echoed a lot of what you've been saying about how this war is played out.

Yeah.

Um, what do you, what do you, you think there's an off ramp coming?

Do you think that there's an income?

He doesn't have a plan.

He doesn't have concepts of a plan.

And I think, you know, he's, for some reason, he either didn't listen to his advisors,

didn't listen, didn't check in with other presidents.

Everyone, all historians, politicians, I mean, you can read the op-ed pieces.

And I hope people do.

Um, everyone knew that Iran would, uh, there was, there hasn't not been a regime change.

In fact, uh, the leader now was the former leader's son,

who reportedly is even more hard line.

Um, they're, they were going to close the streets of our mues.

I mean, they were going to do that.

That was completely, um, predictable, predictable.

And he did it anyway.

And then, you know, oh, I'm now I'm going to bomb all of, of, of energy infrastructure,

infrastructure, infrastructure.

The response is going to be digging in more.

I mean, I just, I don't think he is, um, a consumer of history or takes advice.

I think, um, he's impulsive.

I think Senator Booker, I don't want to put words in his mouth.

I think he called him impulsive as well.

I, he has no plan out.

And I'm pretty sure someone like Mark Gorubio knew this.

And so it does feel like an out of control executive, uh,

that our founding fathers warned us about.

And so some people saying that because he never stipulated any real reason,

well, not real reason, but real goal here that he'll be able to just say mission accomplished

and walk away.

Yeah.

Because it's whatever he says.

It's the goals.

It's the goal versus change over and over again.

Senator Booker talked about that.

I mean, first it was a gene change.

Then it was new, uh, even though they had it been obliterated and nuclear capability,

then it was, you know, to save, uh, girls and children.

Yet a girl's school was bombed 165.

So horrible.

Uh, girls died.

Like, what is the goal?

What is the plan?

What is the exit strategy?

There is none.

As far as I can tell.

Going back to the airports.

You mentioned the TSA agents.

Now ice agents are being sent to the airports.

What do you see happening?

Happening as a result of this.

You know, I think that, um, unfortunately,

uh, the Democrats don't have a great record of just the stick to itness that's needed.

Uh-huh.

Um, in, in, in this type of shutdown, um, I hope they stick to it.

I, I'm just not sure that they will.

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All right, I'm going to make a hard turn here, but I know this is a story that you were into.

Denise Richards is sharing before and after photos of her facelift.

She looks good.

And she's getting phrased for being so open about it.

You've been very open about the smaller things that you've had done.

Absolutely.

You think more celebrity should be open about cosmetic procedures.

What goes into your mind when you talk about it?

Well, I do because it's like, it's aspirational in one sense, right?

It's kind of unaffordable for most people.

But I think if someone looks at you and you look different, you look refreshed,

I think it's appropriate as a public figure to say, this is what I did.

I just, I don't know, what's the big deal?

What's with the secret?

I mean, you look better and I think sometimes people don't want to be honest about it

because you're going to be judged.

But you're going to be judged anyway.

And I don't care as much about the judgment.

I think some people are pretty sensitive about it.

I don't care as much about the judgment.

So I just think you should be honest about it.

I don't disagree.

I mean, you know, we have people here sometimes and it's clear stuff's happened

and things have happened.

And they've denied it often.

Yeah, but it's obvious that it's done.

Right.

I don't know.

I think they do it because they don't want to be shamed.

Because you know, our society does do that.

They do.

They do.

They shamed people for doing plastic surgery or...

I mean, there are freaks of nature like our own Joy Bayhark.

Yeah.

Who hasn't had plastic surgery?

No, and it looks fantastic.

Younger than she did that she started 30 years ago.

But most people, that's not the case.

Yeah.

I think that's right.

All right.

There was a story on the Hot Topics list this morning that I know you will have an opinion about

so I went around this by you.

Okay.

I went into an advice column saying, when my fiance and I got engaged, he was employed

and seemed to have everything together.

He owns his house but has people living there for free.

Then he was laid off.

Now he doesn't work, he gets disability and only pays half the rent.

I pay utilities by food and gas for my car.

He's a very nice, sweet, caring person who caters to all my emotional needs.

Should I confront him about his financial issues?

So if he's disabled and has always been a good provider and owns the home and is paying

half the rent because he can't pay all of it anymore, I hope the free loaders aren't

still living there.

But it sounds like he was a generous person to begin with allowing people to live there

free.

I don't know that I buy that you would not confront someone about the financial issues.

I'm kind of shocked at this.

But I don't, I don't, I feel like he's disabled.

Let's remove that part.

Let's remove the disability.

Okay.

He's not disabled and he's lazy.

Then we have to talk.

But he's fulfilling all of your emotional needs.

No, no, no.

It's a partnership.

Yes.

It's a partnership and I work hard and I, a lazy partner who can't, he's paying half.

So he owns his house and he owns the house.

So that's a tough one because he's paying half.

I would have, I would want to talk about why you're not actively seeking employment.

Right.

That's, that's the thing.

You know, it's interesting because you're very successful, obviously, but your husband

is as well.

I mean, he's a successful surgeon.

It's a partnership.

Yeah.

Would you be comfortable with someone who didn't pull the weight really in that fashion?

No.

Yeah.

I didn't think so.

No.

It would be hard for you, I think.

It would be nice to be, to aspire to do something like if, if I'm, you know, with someone

who's an entrepreneur, and, and, and it's just trying their best to do a, and that's

the spirit of them.

It's the spirit of it, you know, but the lazy, sitting at home, and you've talked about

how many, I don't like that.

Man, it was fine with you taking risks that might not have paid.

Yeah.

Did you guys talk about finances before you got married or did you just kind of roll into

it?

I did, because, you know, Manny grew up with two dogs, parents that were physicians.

They were well off.

He was raised traveling the world and, and all of that, and I wasn't.

And so I had debt, and his mother in particular was very concerned about it.

She didn't like that.

I mean, she would say to him, you know, you get married, that debt becomes your debt.

And so we did have a, we talked about it, and he knew very well that I had racked up

some credit card debt, while I was a student, a lot of students do that.

Sure.

And he, we talked about how I was going to pay it off, and how he was going to help me

do that.

All right.

But I also had saved up enough money to buy my own home.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

So you were doing okay?

I was doing okay.

Yeah.

All right.

So you could have paid for that every time when we got married.

I had my own home.

All right.

Yeah.

That's impressive.

All right.

And it does not happen in 2026 very often.

28 when I bought my first home.

Wow.

Yeah.

I was 30 and it's just out of the reach of so many people now in that age group.

Yeah.

All right.

Gabe did something really exciting this weekend.

He did.

Tell us about it.

He became a member of Kappa Alpha Sigh fraternity Incorporated, which was founded in 1911 at Indiana

University.

And he has a legacy.

His, his father was initiated into Kappa Alpha Sigh in the fall of 1988.

Oh, wow.

So Gabriel is now an initiate of Kappa Alpha Sigh spring 2026.

So it was sort of they call it a probate or sort of you get introduced to society as a

member of the fraternity and it was the fraternity gala.

And it was so awesome because they have canes and they do steps and they do party strolls

and to see Manny who's the stepmaster, the stroll master, you know, we like a line dance.

So he was in the front, he's the, he's the stepmaster of the chapter and his son was

right behind him.

It must have meant so much today.

It was so crazy.

My husband cried.

Wow.

Um, the crowd all knew it.

I was proud, mom.

I was taking video.

Um, it was just, yeah, it was just so awesome.

You know, I, I posted it, uh, he had two line brothers, um, uh, Roberto who's put a

brick in and Tyreek, um, and it got over 500,000 views.

And, um, it got picked up by a lot of different websites and, uh, you know, these are anonymous

guys that Gabriel grew up, you know, with a mom who was a public figure.

They did not.

And so they got calls from like all over the country, they were like, Gabe, uh, your mom

posted something and I'm getting calls from people that, uh, I knew in grade school.

So for them, it was a very different experience.

And I think a lot of people don't understand that, uh, the divine nine black, uh, historically,

black sororities and fraternities, we have, we have members of, of, um, all races, but, um,

it's not only just a college thing, well, I have to say I was completely, yeah, it's

a lifetime membership.

It started working here and, and started hearing, uh, the, the, the, the Kamala Harris is

an AK.

And seeing the audience all the time, yeah, Jesse Jackson was, uh, a, a cue, a member of

Omega sci-fi, Ben Krampus and Omega, uh, Omega man as well.

Coretta Scott King was an AKA Martin Luther King was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha.

Now understand this means a lot more than just college.

It's not just a college thing.

Yeah.

It's a, it's a lifelong membership and it's a service organization.

So, um, you know, we give scholarships to students that apply for them.

So we help kids go to college.

Um, we do community service, um, there are a voter registration drives.

I mean, we, we do a lot, we'll put on a pledge.

Do you think a sorority of, or any of them, well, what, what other sorority would she

pledge on an Alpha cap?

Well, I didn't want to, and soon, uh, I don't think she has a choice.

She'll be an AKA with the world.

She's a legacy.

Yes.

Yeah.

She's showing interest.

Yes.

Okay.

Good.

Um, occasionally does her own thing.

Oh, not in, not in our family.

No.

Okay.

Gabriel had no choice.

Mm-hmm.

And Paloma doesn't either.

So.

It's not easy to be a hostage.

I will.

I will.

I will hopefully have news about her one day.

All right.

Well, we look forward to that.

For sure.

All right.

On that note, thank you for joining me today, Sonny.

Tomorrow, I'll be back with Joy Bayhart.

Oh, it's always fun.

Yes.

Always fun.

Oh, he's fun.

Tomorrow, we have the cast of American Idol judges.

That'll be good.

That'll be great.

That'll be great.

Thank you.

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