Meghan McCain Blasts President Trump, Suggests Dad John McCain Is a Way Bigger ‘Badass’
February 28, 2018Meghan McCain has a hunch as to why President Donald Trump repeatedly attacks her father, Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain.
The View host, 33, addressed the issue on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen Tuesday, one day after the president asserted that he would have rushed into the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, even if he wasn’t armed.
“I have this theory —which I have nothing to back it up other than just guessing — that when my dad walks into a room, I mean, he’s a badass. He’s a war hero, people are naturally intimidated by him, and I think he evokes a reaction where people just respect him,” Meghan explained. “And I think that’s what Trump wants when he goes into every room. He wants to be the guy that’s like, ‘I’m the guy that’s going to run in when there’s a shooting, I’m a hardass, I’m whatever.’ But if you have to say that, then you’re maybe not as tough as you think you are.”
Meghan went on to say that Trump’s problem with her father, who is currently battling brain cancer, has taken a toll on both her personal life as well as the Republican party. But she refuses to let the president’s hostility slide.
“No one wanted us to make peace with this, like Hatfields-McCoys of Republican politics, more than me,” she said. “It’s intensely stressful and gives me anxiety. I want us to be a united party. But let me tell you: come for my dad, especially right now, game on.”
John McCain and Meghan McCain
Heidi Gutman/ABC via Getty Images
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The TV personality added that she’s grown accustomed to Trump’s attacks on her family.
“I’m used to it now, he’s done it multiple times. But I wish it would stop,” she said. “It’s not good for the party, I don’t think it’s good for the country, and it’s certainly not good for my family. But it is what it is.”
.@MeghanMcCain calls Trump's comments about her father Sen. McCain at #CPAC "incredibly hurtful," responding to the president's remarks with her mother: "We need more compassion, we need more empathy, we need more togetherness," @cindymccain says. "We don't need more bullying." pic.twitter.com/wMCgZnR8P5
— The View (@TheView) February 28, 2018
.@cindymccain shares an update on her husband @SenJohnMcCain's health, calls him "tough as a boot": "He's doing okay — you know, chemo and radiation is a very tough customer — it does so much good, but it also does a lot of damage." https://t.co/f8u2wc159S pic.twitter.com/umwsSaqND4
— The View (@TheView) February 28, 2018
Meghan’s mother, Cindy McCain, appeared alongside her daughter on The View Wednesday and said, “We need more compassion. We need more empathy. We need more togetherness in terms of working together.
“We don’t need more bullying and I’m tired of it,” Cindy declared.
Cindy also called her husband “tough as a boot” and said he was watching from their Arizona ranch, where he is recovering from his last treatments.
“He’s doing okay. You know, chemo and radiation is a very tough customer — it does so much good, but it also does a lot of damage,” she said.
Meanwhile, Meghan further addressed her father’s feud with the president on WWHL.
After saying in an interview for POLITICO’S Women Rule podcast that she spoke to Trump and his wife Melania after an Axios article claimed the president was mocking Sen. McCain’s thumbs-down gesture when he voted “No” on repealing Obamacare, and “I don’t believe he would go there again,” she told Cohen she was proven wrong.
On Friday, Trump knocked Sen. McCain at the Conservative Political Action Conference for voting against his party’s bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. Although Trump didn’t mention the senator by name, the reference was clear to the crowd, which responded by erupting into boos directed at the senator.
“[Trump] called me on the phone after it was reported in Axios that he had been making fun of my father,” Meghan told Cohen. “We had a very nice conversation, Melania and I had a nice conversation, so yeah, I’m super disappointed.”
Meghan added on The View Wednesday, “I really was under the impression that this sort of fight between our families and between him and my father — especially at this particular moment — would end.”
She added, “I feel, quite frankly, very naïve for having believed it would be any different.”