The Only Thing Worse Than Meghan McCain’s Awkward Seth Meyers Interview Is Her Husband’s Bizarre Reaction to It

Meghan McCain was on Late Night with Seth Meyers Tuesday night for what turned out to be an incredibly uncomfortable interview. Although I’m not sure how anyone could have thought this interview was ever going to be anything other than totally uncomfortable. McCain wasn’t there to promote anything specific. (My guess is that her PR people are trying to do a likeability tour to counteract her recent uptick in frequent and well-deserved Twitter draggings.) The only things Meyers and McCain find to agree on is that Donald Trump is awful, Lindsey Graham is spineless, and everyone should vaccinate their kids.

Things got really contentious when Meyers brought up McCain’s treatment of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Earlier this year, Rep. Omar criticized a pro-Israel lobbying group using what many felt was anti-Semitic language. She unequivocally apologized for her language and said she was learning about “the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes.” Despite not being Jewish herself, Megan McCain took it upon herself to lead the public conversation on anti-Semitism and Omar’s apparent crimes.

She continued to push that conversation even after Omar apologized and after it was known that she was receiving death threats. That’s what Meyers wanted to talk about, telling McCain he found her words to be “dangerous” and questioning her decision to discuss Omar’s language in connection with the tragic shooting at a synagogue in April.

“She’s obviously now stated she needs to be more careful with her language,” Meyers said of Omar. “Don’t you think people who talk about her need to be a little bit more thoughtful as well? Or do you stand by those comments of tying her rhetoric to the synagogue shooting?”

McCain responded like she would have on The View, which is to say, extremely snippish and self-martyring. “I stand by every single thing I’ve said, and if that makes me unpopular in this room or in front of you, so be it,” she said, finishing with an impossibly tight-lipped non-smile that just screamed I’d like to speak to your manager.

“See, that’s a weird thing, that you can take the position of trying to be ‘unpopular,’” Meyers replied. “Here I am trying to find the common ground on this.”

McCain was not interested in finding common ground. It’s clear that she felt she was under attack, despite that obviously not being the case. McCain’s husband, Ben Domenech, seems to have felt similarly, as he went after Meyers in a series of now-deleted tweets.

“I see that @sethmeyers, the untalented piece of shit who only has his job because he regularly gargled Lorne Michaels’ balls, went after my wife tonight with his idiotic anti-Semitic bullshit,” Domenech wrote.

“Seth is an awful person who is known within the industry for how terrible he is. He is a monumental asshole who is utterly unfunny. He deserves the mockery he receives from all the people who laugh at him,” he continued. “Here is proof that white men get ahead despite their obvious lack of talent. It’s @sethmeyers, who would beg for a third of the viewers at @TheView. He’s awful, untalented, and a perfect definition of a cuck.”

If you’re surprised by Domenech’s language, you might not be aware that Meghan McCain’s husband is the co-founder of the far-right website The Federalist. So the homophobia and use of “cuck” as a sincere insult are all pretty on-brand for him.

Domenech also got his start speechwriting for George W. Bush, whom his father just happened to also work for, and he was fired from the Washington Post for past issues of plagiarism less than a week after he began working there. But sure, Ben, tell us more about men getting ahead despite a lack of talent.

In a statement to Mediaite, Domenech said he didn’t mean his homophobic ball-gargling comment literally, as if that were the biggest problem here.

“Seth Meyers is trash,” he said. “I believe this steadfastly and have for years. He only has his job because of sucking up to the right people. He is an untalented hack. My reference was obviously metaphorical and that’s it.”

He also deleted his tweets and replaced them with this message:

This seems like a good time to remind ourselves that Meghan McCain recently received an LGBTQ+ “diversity” award from the Harvey Milk Foundation. Because that’s how little sense anything makes these days.

(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.

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