Meghan McCain does not think 16-year-old Greta Thunberg deserved to be TIME Magazine‘s Person of the Year. The View co-host said that while she “disagrees” with the publication’s decision, she would not lower herself by attacking the child.
“I don’t put a lot of clout into the Time Person of the Year,” McCain said during Thursday’s new episode. “Keep in mind, Hitler and the Ayatollah were also the Person of the Year.”
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She added she believes the Ukraine whistleblower, who was named among the Guardians of the Year, would have been a “more salient and timely choice.”
“It’s hard for me to talk about Greta Thunberg because she’s 16, and I still don’t believe in attacking underaged people,” McCain said, as first reported by The Daily Beast. “I disagree with her, I think everyone knows how I feel about climate change as religion on the left, but I’m not going to attack a 16-year-old in the same way I don’t agree with attacking Barron Trump.”
The conversation took a turn when Joy Behar wondered why Melania Trump would not defend Thunberg against President Donald Trump’s tweets against the climate change activist, especially since she was “so upset” after a Stanford professor mentioned Barron’s name during her impeachment testimony.
“So ridiculous,” Trump tweeted as a response to Thunberg being on the cover of TIME Wednesday. “Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”
In response, Thunberg changed her Twitter bio to read: “A teenager working on her anger management problem.”
“I did not think it was appropriate for Barron’s name to be invoked even as an analogy, as some sort of pun,” Sunny Hostin said during Thursday’s episode. “And I don’t think it’s appropriate for the president to go after a teenager who has Asperger’s, who’s a climate change activist, and I would like to see from the first lady the same kind of energy and verve with which she used defending her son.”
After referencing Melania’s #BeBest anti-bullying campaign, Hostin added, “She’s married to the bully-in-chief.”
When McCain maintained her opinion the whistleblower should have taken the top honor, Behar referenced Thunberg’s “global” impact over the past year.
“I don’t agree with her as a choice, and I also think if you are 16, is this peak for her? What comes next? I mean, this is a high, high bar for her,” McCain added, “I don’t know how you can possibly live up when you are 17 when you’re already person of the year.”
The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
