Greetings and welcome to Wednesday, June 17, 2026. Today is National Eat Your Vegetables Day, National Apple Strudel Day, and National Root Beer Day. It's also Bunker Hill Day. (I'm reliably advised that the commemorated event actually occurred on Breed's Hill.)
1788: After a lengthy stay in Europe, future President John Adams and his wife, Abigail Adams, return to Boston.
1837: Charles Goodyear obtains his first rubber patent.
1856: The Republican Party opens its first national convention as party members meet in Philadelphia.
1863: Travelers Insurance Co. of Hartford chartered (the first accident insurer).
1885: Statue of Liberty arrives in NYC aboard French ship Isere.
1901: The College Board introduces its first standardized test, the forerunner to the SAT.
1944: Iceland dissolves its union with Denmark and declares itself a Republic.
1950: The first kidney transplant (Chicago).
1963: British House of Commons debates Profumo-Christine Keeler affair.
1971: Carole King's album Tapestry goes to #1 on U.S. album charts and stays there for 15 weeks.
Birthdays today include: Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer (The Firebird); Martin Bormann, German Nazi leader (Hitler's secretary, chief of the Party Chancellery); Ralph Bellamy, actor (Trading Places); Stringbean, banjoist and comedian (Hee Haw); Chuck Rainey, jazz and session bassist (Steely Dan, Quincy Jones, Aretha Franklin, Mose Allison); Barry Manilow, singer and pianist ("Mandy"); Newt Gingrich, Speaker of the House (1995-97); Gregg Rolie, singer and keyboardist (Santana, 1965-71, Journey, 1973-80); Joe Piscopo, comedian; and Greg Kinnear, actor and talk show host.
If today's your day, too, happy birthday.
* * *
So there I am last night, an hour from bed, parked in my recliner like the semi-functional adult I am, doom-scrolling through the news feeds, when I stumble across clips from The View. Now, I normally dodge that ill-conceived propaganda mill the same way I dodge running marathons — and for identical reasons. Both are painful, sweaty, and ultimately pointless endeavors that leave you exactly where you started, just more exhausted and dumber for having participated.
But VP JD Vance had walked into the coop, ostensibly to be grilled by the hens. That elevated things to the level of mild interest. I'd heard the appearance was coming and initially filed it under "not my problem." Except the algorithm had other plans, and suddenly clips were breeding in my feed like rabbits. And look, the prospect of watching Whoopi Goldberg spiral into a live, televised meltdown? That's worth five minutes of anyone's life. I transferred the feed to the big screen and settled in.
Worth noting: the FCC is currently suing The View for operating as the most cartoonishly one-sided broadcast in television history. Entertainment Weekly put it this way:
Similarly, the Federal Communications Commission (headed by Trump supporter Brendan Carr) previously launched an inquiry after The View allegedly violated the long-standing "equal time" rule about broadcast interviews, which requires that political candidates in any given race be afforded an equal amount of airtime if one is interviewed during their respective race for office.
Carr's FCC has alleged that The View broke this standard upon interviewing Texas senate candidate James Talarico, but, as many in media have pointed out, entertainment-style talk shows have long been excluded from the "equal time" rule in the past.
Of course, Disney has responded that The View is a news show. A New York Post piece from last May:
Disney is claiming “The View” is a news program — and critics are calling the media company plain “Goofy.”
Local Houston TV network KTRK-TV, and its parent company, Disney, filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission asking the agency to declare “The View” a “bona fide news” show, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr revealed Saturday.
“Disney argues that The View qualifies as ‘bona fide news’ under the law, comparing itself to Meet The Press or Face The Nation…”
I don't know; perhaps it's just my suspicious nature, but it seems likely that Vance's appearance was an attempt on Disney's part to stave off that FCC lawsuit.
So anyway, they seated him, and then the fun began. I can’t with any accuracy describe the whole mess in the relatively short pieces I write here at PJ Media. You can watch it here for yourself if you’ve a mind to and have over a half hour to waste. All I can do is give a couple of reactions. Here’s one of the better YouTube overviews of the event:
Right in the middle of all this — especially when illegal immigration finally crawled into the "discussion" — it occurred to me that the people shrieking themselves hoarse for a higher mandated minimum wage? Those exact same people are also screaming — with identical volume and absolutely zero self-awareness — that without illegal immigrant labor, nobody will pick our crops. And yes, a lot of the time in this interview was devoted to the subject of illegal aliens. But that contradiction? Nope.
Ya know, I seem to recall this country fighting an entire civil war over that precise argument. You remember it: "Who's going to pick our cotton?"
Message to The View: The 1860s called. They want their economic justification back.
And let's not even talk about the effect on the housing market and the cost of government services to the taxpayer.
But does that contradiction register anywhere on the left? Nope. Does it cost anyone demanding $20/hour for flipping burgers even a single night of sleep? Not a chance. So nobody should be surprised that the topic never once surfaced during Vance’s sit-down with The View. I should also point out that the majority of illegals don't end up as farm labor, but instead are flooding the cities. A topic for another column, where I might dive more deeply into it, but again, it didn't get mentioned on this edition of The View.
Anyway, as for what did get said, a Fox piece this morning mentions the subject of Immigration from a different angle:
"You talk about moral tradeoffs that result in favoring a strict migration policy without dehumanizing anyone," Navarro said to Vance. "But listen, over 50 people have died in ICE custody. There are thousands of children — 6,200 — that are being held in places like Dilley Detention Center. The people that have visited — I don’t know if you have visited — talk about the subhuman, inhuman conditions, lack of clean water, the lack of medical attention, the lack of education. I would urge you, as a Christian and as a father, to visit those detention centers where the children are being held and make sure that the conditions are up to the values that we hold in this country."
"We have to strike a balance between enforcing laws," Vance said. "We don’t want to dehumanize people. Law enforcement is always inherently not a pretty process. Especially when you deal, sometimes with violent people, with people who are resisting arrest. Some of the people that I have been told by the media were completely peaceful, never violated any laws, you look into the record and find out that those people were actually being violent, or they did have a criminal record. They had a sex traffic conviction."
OK, a valid answer.
Still, I must say, my reaction was a bit of disappointment that Vance didn’t mention that ICE’s own data shows 67 people died in ICE custody during the Obama years, during which time the View said nothing at all about it. Even left-leaning Snopes agrees with that figure. Nobody mentions that the number of deportees under Trump is dwarfed by that under Obama. Obama Deported 5.3 million, according to Newsweek. Trump deported 2.1 million during his first term, and Biden 1.3 million.
Of course, Vance got hit with the nonsensical argument that a lot of the people in ICE custody have no criminal record — nonsensical because of one factor: They’re here illegally and are therefore criminals. There’s no getting around this point. So the clucking hens on The View tend to totally ignore it. It’s a pretty solid point that wouldn’t put the remainder of the arguments they make in a positive light, after all. And Vance let that slip by, as well.
Also not mentioned are the anchor babies, by which welfare monies are distributed to illegal aliens. The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) estimates that about 61% of households headed by illegal immigrants access at least one welfare program. That never got addressed, either.
Overall, a disappointment. Eh, I suppose Vance didn't do badly, really. A cook is only as good as his ingredients, after all. He can only respond to their questions. And his calm in the face of the outright insanity The View has so ably represented for years now deserves some kudos. But these were major points that he shouldn't shouldn't have allowed to get by him. He could have, and I think should have, brought them up and then sat back and watched the hysterics.
Getting a fair representation of events on places like The View is like expecting a shopping cart with wheels that don't act like there's a windstorm two inches off the floor. So, it's no shock to me that I came away from looking at the feeds of this event more than a little disappointed. But you'd think that just once…
Thought of the day: How many of you are still working on the stockpile of toilet paper you bought after 9/11?
VIP members: Hit the heart and comment. Did any of you see the whole thing? What was your reaction? Your thoughts and comments make a difference. Oh, and share the piece on social media by using the buttons below.
Take care today, and thanks for being here.
I'll see you here tomorrow.
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