Meghan McCain Says She Left The View Because Her Cohosts Were Too Mean To Her

If you’re in need of a laugh, do I have the story for you! Meghan McCain has finally revealed the reason she left The View—because her cohosts were too mean to her. Personally, I think it’s clear they actually weren’t mean enough to her, since it still took her nearly four years to leave the show, but that’s just one person’s opinion! In an excerpt from her new audio memoir Bad Republican published by Variety, McCain wrote about her experience while on the show and why she left. And yes, it’s just as infuriating and unintentionally hilarious as you’d imagine.

The Bad Republican excerpt reads like a masterclass in the self-victimization of white women, from the choice to demonize her Black woman colleague to acting as though people hurting her feelings is a form of oppression.

“When I first joined “The View” in 2017, I felt a connection to Whoopi. She had made a promise to my father that she would look after me, and she kept her word for the first two years that I was on the show. The thing about Whoopi, though, is that she yields so much power in culture and television, and once she turns on you, it can create unfathomable tension at the table. I found her open disdain for me more and more difficult to manage as the years went on and it became more frequent. Occasionally, if the show’s political discourse veered into territory that she found disagreeable, Whoopi would cut me off, sometimes harshly.”

What a fascinating choice, to frame Whoopi’s disdain towards her as something that was totally arbitrary and not at all informed by, say, McCain’s persistent racism and generally irritating demeanor. It’s certainly telling (though not surprising) that McCain chose to put the bulk of the responsibility for this so-called “meanness” on the only Black woman host on the show. Adding that she felt like Whoopi should “look after” her, despite the fact that she is also a grown woman, was really just the cherry on top. How utterly original and definitely not based in racist tropes!

You can’t imagine how it messes with your self-esteem working in an environment where the worst thing you can be in the world is a Republican during the Trump years. As the country got worse under Trump, the treatment from Whoopi, Joy and some of the staff grew meaner and less forgiving. It was as if I had become an avatar for everything they hated about the president. It felt like the co-hosts and staff only knew one Republican — me — and took out all their anger on me, even though I didn’t even vote for Trump.

During my time on “The View,” I felt like I was being often being punished and singled out for being a conservative. I’d hear a lot of complaints that the staff, including the other co-hosts and producers, had problems with my “personality.”

God, it must have been so difficult for McCain to deal with the hits to her self-esteem for being out as a Republican while the leader of the political party she loudly and frequently praised was violently bigoted at every opportunity! That’s true suffering—not like those other hosts, who clearly don’t have any idea what true oppression looks like! And the fact that McCain truly appears to believe that complaints from both her cohosts and the show’s production staff about her “personality” were just an attempt to cover up their dislike of her politics? Now that’s pure comedy.

Although it’s certainly difficult to show up daily to a toxic workplace, in this situation it’s clear that McCain was at least partially responsible for the toxicity of her work environment! McCain’s framing of her experience on The View in this excerpt is predicated on the belief that her cohosts’ disdain towards her was because of her conservative politics—and in her eyes, political differences aren’t a legitimate reason to dislike someone. Moving past the fact that it’s clear McCain gave her cohosts plenty of reasons not to like her beyond her shitty and uninformed political views, those shitty and uninformed political views would also be a perfectly reasonable justification for her coworkers not liking her! Because, in news that would seemingly shock Meghan McCain, her political beliefs actually contribute to and justify the oppression of real people!

But it’s hardly surprising that McCain is once again acting as though her emotional state should absolve her from taking responsibility for her words and their impacts. After all, that’s exactly what she was known for doing on the show!

(In a twist no one could possibly have predicted, McCain ends the excerpt with an anecdote about—you guessed it!—her father. If you don’t know who that man is by now, even we can’t help you.) [Variety]

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