Yara Shahidi casts doubt that 2020 candidates with 'long political history' will appeal to younger voters on 'The View'
The actress will be voting in her first presidential election in 2020.
Young Hollywood actress Yara Shahidi talked politics with "The View" co-hosts, voicing concerns amongst her generation about 2020 presidential candidates with a "long political history" -- and about who may be able to move the country forward.
"The Sun is Also a Star” actress joined "The View" co-hosts Wednesday morning and shared her political views as the face of Generation Z and a first time voter in a presidential election.
She said that previously voted in the primary and midterm elections.
The politically-active 19-year-old said that her generation is "dealing with candidates who have a long political history, and some things that we just genuinely don’t agree with."
She talked about two candidates currently leading the Democratic field of presidential hopefuls.
Former Vice President Joe Biden is the most experienced politician in the field of nearly two dozen candidates. But Biden has been under scrutiny for months his past regarding his handling of Anita Hill's testimony in the 1991 Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Biden's career-long tendency to embrace people has also come under suspicion.
He addressed both Anita Hill and claims made against him during his appearance on "The View" in April.
During Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential run, some of his top male campaign staffers faced sexual harassment allegations. Since the claims were made, Sanders has been open about the matter, and said on "The View" that he established new protocols for his 2020 campaign staff.
Still, Shahidi went on to say, "it’s not so much that we have to hold [candidates] accountable for something that happened years and years ago, but how would we quantify or measure that there’s actual change that’s been made.”
"So many of my peers are politically inclined," she continued. "It has been a group effort to say or figure out as a generation what matters to us in terms of protecting our community – in terms of moving forward – really what’s going to be most influential."
"I personally do not sit out because it's the reality that we operate in part of a political system," Shahidi said. "I'm gonna take the opportunity."
Every episode of ABC's award-winning talk show "The View" is now available as a podcast! Listen and subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, TuneIn, Spotify, Stitcher or the ABC News app.
Related Stories
ABC News Live