Former “The View” host Meghan McCain is taking offense to a comment made on the show by host Ana Navarro on Thursday morning, despite the fact that McCain’s name never explicitly came up in the conversation.
During the episode, Navarro startled her cohosts when she said, “Look, did Hunter Biden influence-peddle on his last name? Yes he did. So did half of Washington! People sitting at this table did it!”
Whoopi Goldberg, Sara Haines, Sunny Hostin and Alyssa Farah Griffin all stopped dead in their tracks, looking visibly stunned and confused, and eventually Farah Griffin cut her off, asking her to clarify exactly who and what she meant.
“I’m not talking about currently,” Navarro shot back, earning a literal sigh of relief from her cohosts.
Navarro didn’t name names, and just continued on with her thought, but Meghan McCain appeared to think it was a direct shot at her, as the daughter of John McCain (something she frequently mentioned on the show). In a post to X, popularly still known as Twitter, McCain wrote that she doesn’t “understand” why her former coworkers “bring me up and slander me on an almost weekly basis.”
It’s worth noting that McCain has not actually been mentioned by name on the show at all in recent weeks.
“It has been years – move on, I have,” she wrote, despite the fact that she has regularly complained about her time on the show — and the show in general, even after her exit — in her column and elsewhere since leaving. She also bragged last year about how long it took ABC to find a replacement for her.
“I have never been accused of a crime in my life and am a patriotic American – I would never and have never ‘influenced peddled’ in my life, let alone with foreign adversaries,” McCain wrote.
“Not all politicians children are the same – and I am no Hunter Biden,” she continued. “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 a follow-up post, McCain wrote that “The View” is an ABC news program, and “I do not take it lightly when any news program suggests I engage in criminal behavior, especially as a former employee of ABC News.”
At no point did Ana Navarro accuse anyone at “The View” of criminal behavior in her comment, just using their family name to benefit in certain situations.
Additionally, “The View” is indeed under the ABC News umbrella, but it is a talk show, in which the hosts give their personal opinions on items in the news. They do not report these opinions as fact, and regularly make it clear that their thoughts are just their opinions.
“The View” airs daily at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
