'The View' host: Republicans are Neanderthals because they don't 'listen to the government'

"The View" co-host Sunny Hostin agreed Friday with President Biden's remark that Republican governors who re-opened states and reversed mask mandates were engaging in "Neanderthal thinking" because they had elected to not "listen to the government."

Hostin, a reliably liberal voice on the show, said Biden had "every right" to feel that way about Republican leaders of Texas and Mississippi, who announced plans this week to lift capacity restrictions and end mask mandates.

"All the pearl-clutching over language is really something to me, when you had four years of someone speaking in the lowest of terms and debasing people and degrading people," she said. "I think that President Biden has every right to feel this way. He has suffered tremendous loss. Americans have suffered tremendous loss, over 500,000 lost souls.

"We are close to changing, but we only have about 15.6%, 16.3% of the total population that has been vaccinated, and we know that we need 70 to 80% of the population to be vaccinated for herd immunity. The ask from the Biden administration was to wear masks for the first 100 days of his administration."

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Hostin said she agreed it was "Neanderthal thinking" to remove the mask mandates now.

"Not listen to the government and not listen to the science, most importantly," she said. "I think I would've called it something worse than Neanderthal thinking, quite frankly."

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Reversing mask mandates does not mean people can't mask up, as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott noted on Thursday. Cases and hospitalizations across the country have declined as COVID vaccinations have surged nationwide.

"We are still strongly advocating that every Texan follow the best practice," he told Fox News. "Where we are today is completely different from where we were this time last year, when Texans and Americans didn't know how to deal with this for an entire year. Texans have learned the best practice, and that is to wear a mask."

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Given the traditionally Republican bent of Texas and Mississippi, some conservatives took offense to Biden's language, comparing it to Hillary Clinton calling Donald Trump supporters "deplorables."

"For a president that called for unity to degrade himself to name-calling, doesn’t make any sense at all," Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte said on Friday.