Sara Haines Demands On ‘The View’ Congress Not Be Paid During Government Shutdown: “It Would Be A Little Bit Of A Motivator”

While Sara Haines is known as The View‘s resident moderate, she delivered a more radical argument on today’s episode during a debate about the looming government shutdown.

The government is at a standstill as House Republicans are blocking the Senate’s bipartisan proposal, and Haines wants consequences.

“I want to see Congress not get paid when a government gets shutdown,” she said. While the audience applauded, Joy Behar bluntly told her, “They’re not gonna do that.”

Haines agreed, but added, “It’s funny because I’ve always thought that, how convenient to make decisions about people not having money or food on the table when it doesn’t affect your own table or your own pay.”

She continued, “Nikki Haley brought that up in the debate and I liked it. She said, No pay, no budget, I want to see Congress do that. It would be a little bit of a motivator for them, but they had nothing, and what I’ve read is, this never bodes well for Republicans, so I can’t understand this strategy behind this.

“It can’t go through Senate, so you’re wasting time,” she continued. “The government’s going to shut down, I think they think they’re gonna blame it on Biden, but this just ends up being a total poop-storm.”

Elsewhere in the episode, The View welcomed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who also weighed in on the impending shutdown. During his interview with the Hot Topics panel, the Democratic lawmaker refused to name names when Behar pushed him about difficult Republicans.

.@SecretaryPete to #TheView on the looming government shutdown and the impact on air travel: "Congress has a job to do. They need to run the federal government."

"It's a matter of time before chaos in Congress leads to chaos at airports." https://t.co/cVclFZQmjA pic.twitter.com/32z3LkjVFG

— The View (@TheView) September 29, 2023

“What seems to be happening is, a handful of fringe Republicans in the House are really holding the whole process hostage, demanding further and deeper cuts,” Buttigieg said.

But before he could continue, Behar could be hear pressing him from off-camera, “Who are they? Name them.”

Buttigieg seemed to stumble, telling Behar, “You know, the— they’re, they’re, you know, they’re, uh, it’s a small number, but it’s too many to name. You can definitely look them up, I mean, you see them holding the whole process up. A lot of them belong to what’s called the Freedom Caucus.”

Sounds like Behar’s gotta Google this one.

The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC. Watch this morning’s conversation in the video above.