The View co-host Meghan McCain had a rough morning. The first sign of trouble came during the show’s Thunderdome-style Hot Topic segment, when McCain highjacked a discussion on the bombshell story of an intelligence community whistleblower lodging a complaint against President Trump regarding his allegedly shady dealings with foreign leaders. Her preferred topic of discussion instead? Her lingering grievance over recent The View guest Pamela Anderson‘s defense of Julian Assange. If you’re baffled by that premise, you’re not alone, because so was the rest of the panel, including guest co-host and Republican strategist Ana Navarro.
Here’s the backstory: Earlier this month, McCain got into it with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s fervent defender and rumored girlfriend Anderson (we don’t get it either), with the late Senator John McCain’s daughter calling Assange “a cyber-terrorist.” Apparently McCain still has an axe to grind over that confrontation, which may be why she forced it into a conversation about Trump allegedly having inappropriate dealings with Ukraine in order to influence the 2020 election.
“I think all interference from a foreign country in our election, all of it is bad and should be condemned. And you can’t play party politics with this, and there’s a lot of people on the left who are doing that with Julian Assange,” McCain insisted. “I’m mad there are people on the left that think that Julian Assange is OK.”
See also: Meghan McCain: Migrant Kids Aren’t in ‘Torture’ Facilities — My Dad Was
There are too many reasons to get into why that statement isn’t true, beginning with WikiLeaks releasing Hillary Clinton’s emails ahead of the 2016 election, but sure.
The View co-host Sunny Hostin bravely tried to make sense of McCain’s false equivalency by asking, “You’re saying, Meghan, the people are against this whistleblower?”
McCain responded: “A lot of people are OK with what Julian Assange did—I’m sorry, are OK with what Julian Assange did, and not OK with this whistleblower … There are a lot of people in this country, and a lot of people in the hard left that defend Julian Assange.”
And with that, she successfully derailed the discussion, which in fairness, is par for the course with this show. However, things became particularly hostile when Navarro tried to express her decidedly more nuanced view on the whistleblower story. But she was met with McCain bellowing, “Excuse me, maybe I was clumsy in the way that I said it!” While a stunned Navarro just stared at her, McCain added: “I don’t know what you just said.”
What McCain didn’t realize is that she was teeing Navarro up to knock McCain down a few pegs. “I said, ‘Don’t scream at me. I’m two feet away,'” responded the Republican strategist. As evidenced by the studio audience’s reaction, they really enjoyed watching McCain get owned.
Ana Navarro just snatched the platinum blond wig off Meghan McCain’s empty head!😂#TheView pic.twitter.com/49enhJSRQy
— Derek (@Latin4Cookies) September 20, 2019
Co-host Joy Behar then attempted to take the temperature down by throwing to commercial, but the cameras caught McCain storming off in a huff. The audience seemed to enjoy that as well.
The audience’s reaction to Meghan McCain walking off after Ana Navarro checked her is hilarious #TheView pic.twitter.com/z2OTgrUVC2
— Nicole Perez (@nicole_perez1) September 20, 2019
SPIN reached out to reps from The View, who declined to comment on McCain’s blowup with Navarro. It’s worth noting that McCain was back in her seat when the show returned from break.
More in News:
- White Stripes Release Surprise Live Album of Their Final Concert
- The Killers Remember Ric Ocasek by Performing “My Best Friend’s Girl”
- Chris Cornell’s Daughter, 15, Releases First Single
