Abby Huntsman has changed her mind on allegations that President Donald Trump pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to come up with damaging information against Joe Biden.
The conservative "View" host has been reluctant to comment on reports about those talks, which have been revealed in the wake of a whistleblower complaint the White House is blocking from Congress, because she wasn't sure she could trust the reporting.
"As you guys know ,I've been weary about this from the time it was trickling out last week because, one, we didn't have all the facts, the media doesn't always get it right, and it was the same Democrats calling for impeachment before he even got in office," Huntsman said. "I was, like, let's just take a breath."
But that has changed in recent days, she said.
"The more I'm learning about this, and I think other people are learning about it, this is really alarming," Huntsman said. "Now we have more of the facts and the president himself even admitted it, but in my opinion, this is extortion."
"I was trying to compare it to something in our life," Huntsman continued. "He really was withholding the money, saying he was wanted Paris -- he wanted France and Germany to pay for it. Why didn't he tell Congress at the time that was the reason why?"
Huntsman tried to explain Ukraine's bind in everyday terms.
"If you have a boss that says, go do something for me, something that you don't want to do, you know that they hold the cards, that if you don't do it, you risk not getting paid, you risk getting fired," she said, "and Ukraine, they didn't have the money that they needed, that they were promised they were going to get, so in that case he may say, I'm not pressuring you, but they know if you don't do what I'm telling you to do, you will not be in a good position."
Huntsman stopped short of calling for impeachment, but she denounced the president's actions as clearly unacceptable -- as the audience cheered.
"I think, as a country, we should take a step back again and say, what should our president do that we should be proud of?" she said. "Is this something we can stand by?"
