The View turned a bit more confrontational than usual on Valentine’s Day when Meghan McCain laid into Joy Behar while the panel was discussing the upcoming presidential election. When Behar brought up Democratic presidential hopeful Mayor Michael Bloomberg, McCain argued that Behar and the media are too quick to count Bloomberg as a shoo-in. She said that President Donald Trump holds a key demographic that Bloomberg struggles with reaching.
“You have to win over the Midwest and Pennsylvania and coal miners and people that are not attractive to a lot of the Democratic coalition to win over the presidency and Trump has that locked and loaded right now. And I’m sorry, a guy who wants to take away your slurpy is going to have a real problem,” McCain told Behar.
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“And the guy who wants to take away your healthcare is in even worse trouble,” Behar shot back. That’s when things started to get tense.
“You know what, Joy? I’ve been right about election stuff and you’ve been wrong, so just trust me on this,” McCain said from across the table.
“How have I been wrong?” Behar replied.
“You thought Trump was gonna lose in 2016 and I didn’t,” she said.
“He did actually lose, you know,” Behar said.
“Does that make you feel good at night? He’s in the White House,” an increasingly growing frustrated McCain shot back. “That’s a ridiculous thing to say every single day of the show. He is president. Move on!”
A small smattering of applause rang out in the audience before Behar said, “Everybody on this panel repeats themselves, OK?”
“You’re trying to make yourself feel better. It’s weird,” McCain said.
“I don’t want to make myself feel better. I want him out!” Behar said to applause.
“You know a good way to do this? Not ignore coal miners,” McCain said.
“Nobody’s ignoring coal miners!” Behar said.
“But I’m telling you, Bloomberg’s probably going to have a problem,” McCain said, to which Behar argued back that Bloomberg “knows about climate change.”
“And climate change is a good way to win over coal miners, Joe,” McCain said, accidentally mispronouncing Behar’s first name — much to the audience’s delight.
“You can call me Joe. My real name is Josephine,” Behar joked, dissolving the tense moment.
McCain is the lone conservative voice on The View and frequently voices her opinions, leading to many a headline-making moment. Last month, McCain slammed media coverage of rumored behind-the-scenes drama between herself and former co-host Abby Huntsman, who left the show in January to run her father’s gubernatorial campaign in Utah.
McCain denied that she had anything to do with Huntsman’s decision to leave the show, calling coverage of their argument “cruel.”
“Abby and I have been friends for over 10 years. Our parents were friends in politics, we worked at Fox together. Part of the reason she came to The View is because we were friends,” McCain explained on Watch What Happens Live of her relationship with Huntsman. “We are still very good friends. We are very close. I just talked to her yesterday morning. She’s campaigning with her dad. I think she was genuinely conflicted about her dad running for governor and her not helping, and that is the reason why she left.”
McCain did admit, “We did get in a fight, which is a very small fight and a friend fight. And all friendships have ups and downs,” but added it was “cruel” to see their disagreement play out in the media.
“It was sort of bizarre for me, and I think bizarre for her, to have — the fact that we got in one fight the two years that we worked together on the show, to be put under dissection in the media, to be weaponized,” she said.
