Everyone’s got a past, and Alyssa Farah Griffin‘s just happens to be extra interesting. After all, she regularly criticizes her former boss on national TV as part of The View panel. But even some of her co-hosts forget everything she did before she earned her seat at the Hot Topics table.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: The View is on hiatus from Monday, July 28 until Tuesday, September 2. The episode that ABC aired today was originally broadcast on March 25, 2025, the same date that the article you are currently reading was first published.)

Griffin, who first officially joined the show in 2022, previously worked as the White House director of strategic communications and Assistant to the President in 2020 during Donald Trump‘s first term. She also notably served as press secretary of The Pentagon starting in 2019, and worked as deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs and the press secretary for the United States Department of Defense until 2020.

All of that experience that came in handy during today’s chat about The Atlantic report detailing how the magazine’s editor was accidentally included in a Signal chat in which high-ranking Trump officials discussed impending war plans in Yemen.

Griffin gave her co-hosts the run-down of how such planning is traditionally done (spoiler: not by group chat), as she explained, “Let me tell you how this is supposed to work. So when I was in The Pentagon, I was involved with planning leading up to air strikes a number of times.”

She continued, “So what happens is, either all the senior leaders gather in the White House Situation Room—” but was cut off by Joy Behar, who could be heard asking, “You were?”

Griffin replied, “Yes,” but Behar was clearly caught off guard, asking again, “Really?”

As Griffin began to list off the plans she was directly involved in at The Pentagon, Sara Haines gently reminded Behar that Griffin’s work with the department is old news to The View, telling her, “You learn this for the first time every time she says it.”

Behar, defending herself, replied, “That she was in on war plans, I never heard that before,” but Griffin wasn’t swayed. Swiftly moving on, she continued describing the protocol for situations like the Yemen planning that was leaked to The Atlantic.

“No one would have a personal cell phone. You wouldn’t even have your government device with you, and you’d be video-conferencing with the other people that you’re with,” she said, adding emphatically, “An encrypted messaging app is not secure. It is not where you can legally share classified information.”

The View airs weekdays at 11/10c on ABC.