The ladies of *The View* found a cure for their Trump Derangement Syndrome last week, and it involves screaming at the top of their lungs on live television while 2.46 million viewers watch from home and quietly consider canceling cable. Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal stopped by to promote her new feminist Frankenstein remake, shared a little stress-relief exercise her co-star Christian Bale invented while wearing monster prosthetics for weeks, and within about ninety seconds Ana Navarro was shrieking about the President of the United States like a car alarm with a gender studies degree.
These women need help. Professional help.
Here’s how it unraveled. Bale developed what he called “the primal scream” to cope with the monster makeup. Gyllenhaal thought the ladies of The View might enjoy it. The hosts, the studio audience, and Gyllenhaal herself all let out three enthusiastic bellows — and then Ana Navarro, registered Republican and professional Trump-obsessive, seized the moment for what it truly was.
“Wait,” she announced, apparently struck by divine inspiration. “Trump is still president!”
And off they went again. Sunny Hostin fanned herself like she’d just witnessed a healing, gasped that it “feels good,” and settled back into her chair with the satisfied look of a woman who has finally found her calling. We’ll take her word for it.
Now here’s where the story gets genuinely delicious.
Gyllenhaal has been very open about the fact that Donald Trump is the reason she became a director. She told the New York Times — and later Elle — that Trump’s first election “radicalized” her, “shook things up” inside her, and inspired her to start making films. She handed Trump the full credit. Donald Trump, who has never met Maggie Gyllenhaal and did not ask for this honor, launched an entire Hollywood career without even trying.
The film she built from that inspiration — the one she came on The View to promote during the screaming session — opened last weekend to $7.3 million domestically and $13.6 million globally.
Warner Bros. spent $90 million making it. Another $65 million on marketing. Industry analysts say the studio is staring at losses approaching $90 million. The film currently sits at a 59% “rotten” on Rotten Tomatoes, a C+ CinemaScore, and the No. 3 spot at the box office — behind Pixar’s Hoppers and Scream 7.
So Trump inspired the movie. The movie bombed. The man lives rent-free in their heads and apparently also on their profit-and-loss statements.
This is not a talk show that wandered into unhinged territory by accident. The View is a carefully maintained habitat for Trump Derangement Syndrome — a daily ritual for people who need confirmation that everything is terrible and it’s one man’s fault. A Media Research Center study found that in all of 2025, the show hosted 128 liberal guests and exactly two conservatives. Right after Trump won in November 2024, ABC executives were reportedly scrambling to bring in some pro-Trump voices to “balance” the panel. Five months later, nothing has changed.
Some renovations take longer than others.
ABC, by the way, settled a defamation lawsuit with President Trump last year for $15 million and a formal apology. The same network now airs daily screaming sessions about that same president. You genuinely cannot make this stuff up.
The White House has previously weighed in on Navarro with this official statement: “Every time you think Ana Navaro can’t get any dumber, she proves you wrong.” They misspelled her name. We choose to believe this was intentional.
Navarro has proudly boasted that in 52 years of life, she has never shaken Trump’s hand, never watched his show, never bought any of his products, and never voted for him. She mentions this constantly. A woman who thinks about someone this intensely while never once interacting with him has a clinical name for that condition, and it is not “political analyst.”
The movie is called The Bride! — about a woman brought back from the dead “without her consent” to marry a man she’s never met. Hollywood hasn’t made a subtle film since the Clinton administration, God bless them.
What exactly happens to these women when Trump’s second term ends? They’ll find someone new to blame for everything, they always do. But right now, Donald Trump is living in the penthouse suite of their brains, eating their food, watching their cable, and not paying a single dime in rent.
And judging by the box office numbers, he is doing just fine up there.