Meghan McCain pouts during The View.

Meghan McCain Stormed Off of The View After a Confusing Rant About Julian Assange

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During Friday’s taping of The View, Meghan McCain (of the Do You Know Who My Father Is McCains) stormed off stage after guest Ana Navarro asked her to please stop yelling at everyone.

The panel was discussing the news that a whistleblower filed a complaint regarding Donald Trump’s conversation with Ukraine when McCain abruptly changed the subject to talk about Wikileaks’ Julian Assange and a heated on-air argument she recently had with Pamela Anderson over the matter. McCain says that there are “a lot of liberals who are okay with Julian Assange releasing Hillary’s emails” but who are “screaming bloody murder right now about this whistleblower.”

Now, there are definitely a lot of people who identify as liberal or progressive who are very pro-Assange. They in no way represent the general views of liberalism, and it’s pretty ignorant to lump all liberals in together as loving Assange. McCain of all people should take some care with making blanket statements like this, as she really hates it when people lump her in with the worst homophobic, transphobic, generally bigoted conservatives out there–by which I mean her husband.

No one at the table seemed to know what she was talking about but they muddled through. At one point, Navarro generously said she agreed with McCain and that she has “a problem with both” and went on to try to explain what she saw as being the difference between the two. McCain, though, wouldn’t let her talk. Navarro was explaining the importance of public pressure in making sure the administration can’t sweep their whistleblower under the rug but McCain steamrolled her, appearing to willfully misunderstand her point so that she had something to take offense at.

By the end, everyone is talking over each other, which is nothing unusual for this show. But Navarro called McCain out on her inability to listen, telling her to stop screaming at her. (It’s a small table, after all.) McCain, though, was talking too loudly to hear her, and said “I don’t know what you just said.” Navarro responded “I said ‘Don’t scream at me, I’m two feet away.” That elicited an “Ooooh” from the audience and they pretty quickly cut to commercial.

In the clip ABC put up on YouTube, that’s the end of it. In the original version that aired on television, though, McCain huffed off the stage to some pretty great audience reactions.

The reason why I love this (beyond the obvious schadenfreude) is that it exposes the big lie Meghan McCain is constantly trying to push about herself: that liberals don’t like her because she’s conservative. That they can’t handle a smart, assertive Republican woman in liberal ol’ Hollywood.

In reality, it’s not her politics people object to. It’s the fact that she cannot articulate an argument to save her life and whenever anyone pushes back on anything she has to say, she thinks she’s under attack and blames liberal bias. She has no business being on television as a commentator because she has no commentary worth listening to. And that has never been more clear than when Ana Navarro–herself a Republican but one with actual political experience–has to come on and shut her down. Can’t blame that one on liberal bias.

Anyway, Happy Friday, everybody. I will leave you with this exchange (which I almost missed the first time I watched the clip) of Joy Behar having to chide McCain and remind her the guest is speaking, and McCain reacting like a petulant pre-teen.

(image: screencap)

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Vivian Kane
Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.