Meghan McCain says she’s tired of her name consistently being brought up on The View by former cohosts.
“The thing about The View is that I didn’t know when I signed my contract with ABC that this is forever, that, for the rest of my life, I’m going to be bullied, yelled at, abused, and brought up for years,” McCain, 39, said on the Wednesday, December 27, episode of the “Your Welcome” podcast. “I haven’t been on that show in years. And I’m just trying to live my life.”
McCain, who was a cohost on the ABC talk show from 2017 to 2021, added that she “didn’t know” when she signed on to join The View that she would “have to deal with these crazy old people just yelling about me all of the time.”
“I go whole swaths of time without thinking about them — whole months without thinking about the show or anything,” she continued. “And apparently, I’m just on their minds every day. And it’s pathetic.”
McCain’s remarks were referring to a recent episode of The View in which she previously alleged cohost Ana Navarro made a reference to her political family. (Meghan is the daughter of late senator John McCain.)
During the December 14 broadcast, Navarro, 51, Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Sunny Hostin, Sara Haines and Alyssa Farah Griffin discussed President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s decision not to comply with a subpoena to testify in a private hearing about his foreign businesses. (Hunter previously said he preferred a public court appearance.)
“Look, did Hunter Biden influence-peddle on his last name? Yes, he did. So did half of Washington,” Navarro claimed. “People sitting at this table did it!”
After the panel looked at each other to determine who she was referring to, Navarro later clarified she didn’t mean at the table “currently.” While Navarro didn’t name any names, Meghan assumed she was referencing her.
“I don’t understand why my former colleagues @TheView @ABC bring me up and slander me on an almost weekly basis,” she wrote via X (formerly Twitter). “It has been years — move on, I have.”
Meghan noted that she has “never been accused of a crime” in her life and is a “patriotic American.” She added that she has never “influenced peddled” in her life, “let alone with foreign adversaries.”
“Not all politicians children are the same – and I am no Hunter Biden,” she wrote. “All accusations are absurd, defamatory and slanderous. I will be consulting my lawyers regarding what was libeled against me on The View this morning.”
In another response, she added that as a “former employee of ABC News,” she doesn’t “take it lightly” when being accused of engaging in “criminal behavior.”
Elsewhere on Wednesday’s podcast episode, McCain claimed that while she didn’t agree with host Michael Malice’s theory that The View is “malevolent” at its core, the show is a “disorganized place” with people who aren’t “that smart.”
She added that the hosts are given “Hot Topics” to choose from at night, and they’re “sent news articles you walk to talk about the next day.” She noted that “whatever the majority chooses is the topic of the show.”
“So obviously anything that makes Democrats look bad is never chosen,” she said. “I had to go in every morning being like, ‘Hey, whatever news story that makes Biden look bad is the number one news story of the day,’ and there would be a fight over whether or not it should even be aired because the hosts didn’t agree on it. And that was always a battle every day. And there were some news stories that they just wouldn’t cover because it made people look bad. It’s under ABC News and I don’t think that’s totally ethical.”
McCain has often been candid about her grievances about the show since her departure. In October 2021, she claimed The View’s “toxic work environment” was the reason why she left the program.
“My take on the problems of The View are that it’s a show with a lot of demons that started in the beginning, and none of those demons have been exorcized,” she told Variety at the time.
