Prosecutors in New Mexico this week announced that actor Alec Baldwin would face two counts of involuntary manslaughter in the 2021 death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the film Rust, and despite his role in the tragic killing, the liberal ladies of The View wasted no time in defending one of their own, as Newsbusters reports.

Though Baldwin was holding the gun that killed Hutchins at the moment it discharged, he has long disclaimed any blame for her death, instead placing the ultimate responsibility on other members of the Rust crew.

History of denials

In a jaw-dropping interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos in December of 2021, Baldwin denied having pulled the trigger on the gun and said, “Someone is responsible for what happened, and I can't say who that is, but I know it's not me.”

Forensic testing conducted by the FBI, however, told a different story, revealing that the gun used on the set “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger,” as Fox News noted at the time, giving lie to one of Baldwin's main contentions.

In the wake of the charging announcement from New Mexico, the reliably left-wing panelists on The View quickly set about attempting to continue arguing those points on Baldwin's behalf and slamming the prosecutor's decision.

Ladies' lamentations

Specifically, Baldwin's backers at The View asserted that responsibility for checking the firearm to make sure it did not contain live rounds did not belong to the actor and that the reportedly young and inexperienced film set armorer was to blame.

They also lamented the fact that regardless of what happens in the case, the entire episode represents a “tragedy” for Baldwin's career prospects, something that to most other observers would pale in comparison to the suffering the husband and young son Hutchins left behind have experienced.

Nominal “Republican” Ana Navarro echoed those sentiments, saying that the situation had become a “tragedy” for “Alec Baldwin [and] his career, if it ever comes back will never be the same again, and this will be on his obituary.”

Co-host Joy Behar was apoplectic at the very idea that someone such as Baldwin could be “facing up to five years in prison” when other producers working on the set managed to elude charges altogether.

Baseless allegations

As the segment drew toward its end, Behar attempted to argue that the decision to charge Baldwin was political in nature, suggesting that District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies was a “big Republican” and thus untrustworthy.

“Alec Baldwin is a target for Republicans. They cannot stand him. Okay I'm just saying,” added Behar, a possible reference to the actor's well-known rants against former President Donald Trump and his past history of gun control advocacy.

At least with regard to that statement, however, Behar was forced to wind her neck in a bit, issuing a correction after the commercial break that it was actually special prosecutor Andrea Reeb who had ties with Republican circles in New Mexico.

Though the overall theme of the ladies' commentary on the Baldwin case was a reprehensible effort to absolve the actor of all blame in the fatal incident, there was a small burst of sanity when co-host Sara Haines interjected some words of acknowledgment for the loss suffered by the Hutchins family, describing the circumstances as “a life lost way too soon.”

This is certainly not the first time the women of The View have tied themselves into rhetorical knots trying to excuse the inexcusable – and it assuredly won't be the last – but to do so in support of a verbally abusive, self-righteous bully such as Baldwin just makes their words all the more abhorrent.