The View’s “Republican” co-host Meghan McCain and guest co-host Ana Navarro had a spitfire exchange over who was to blame for the government shutdown during the January 22 show. After Navarro continued to attack the GOP’s response to the shutdown, McCain called her out as a hypocrite for still identifying as a Republican, yet defending Democrats at every chance she was given.
“[I]t's really difficult for me to understand sometimes why you still consider yourself a Republican,” McCain exclaimed in blasting the CNN commentator.
Just an hour before the Senate reached a deal to reopen the government, the hosts at The View were arguing about who was to blame for the three day shutdown.
McCain began by calling out Chuck Schumer as a hypocrite, for claiming during the 2013 shutdown that his party would never “shut down the government,” over immigration reform. But now that President Trump was in office, his party did exactly that.
But liberal host Sunny Hostin blamed Trump, saying he set “this whole thing in motion,” by moving to end DACA last September. “The Republicans had eight years to do something about DACA,” she griped.
Host Joy Behar jumped in to complain that Republicans wanted to take away funding from the military and their families with this shutdown.
“Now this is supposed to be the party that’s always touting we love the military, the military and they will try to fool the American people into thinking they are so in love with the military that they will pay attention to them and yet, they won't give them the money during the shutdown!” Behar gushed.
Not surprisingly, Navarro agreed with Behar, saying that Republicans were playing a political game over this spending bill.
“I would say to Mitch McConnell, I would say to everybody because it's going to happen on both sides, do not play with the people that are defending our national security that are putting our lives at risk,” she declared, as the audience applauded.
This set McCain off, who criticized the pair for blaming Trump and Republicans for the shutdown when they didn’t do the same to Obama in 2013:
[I] think there's a cacophony of blame being pointed everywhere and quite frankly, you are showing your partisanship if you don't place the same amount of blame on Trump that you did on President Obama and speaker Boehner as you did at the time, on Chuck Schumer at the same time. It is not intellectually honest to sit here and say this is completely Trump's fault. Democrats are playing partisan politics in the exact same way...
She added, “I agree with you Ana, that this should be an easy layup quite frankly on both sides because of how popular it is, but to sit here and say this government shutdown has anything to do with my or the Republican party's love for the troops is just intellectually dishonest.”
After talking over-each other again, Whoopi demanded order be restored to the table. That was McCain’s chance to go after Navaro personally for constantly attacking Republicans on CNN and ABC, yet still calling herself a member of that party.
“I understand that DACA is a very emotional issue at this point but most Republicans are on my side on this one, Ana, and it's really difficult for me to understand sometimes why you still consider yourself a Republican,” she charged Navarro.
Before McCain had even finished her sentence, Navarro interrupted to reply, testily, “Because I'm a Hispanic immigrant Latina!”
As the audience cheered at Navarro’s rallying cry, the pair continued to talk over each other. Navarro kept ranting:
Because I was brought to this country when I was 8 years old. Because my parents fled Communism and it was not my decision to come here. I came here through no decision of my own. I came here through no fault of my own. Had my parents not had visas, had my parents not had the resources to hire lawyers I would be a D.R.E.A.M. Act kid, too. That's why this is personal.
The audience roared in approval, as soon as she finished speaking, as if on cue. When it died down, McCain shook her head and got back to the topic at hand.
“It is attached to a spending bill right now. We have another month to figure this out. It is partisan politics and government obstructionism at its worst,” she argued.
This isn’t the first time McCain has called out the CNN contributor's party allegiance. On the January 5 View, McCain confronted Navarro, asking if “she prefers democratic candidates now,” as she was frequently defending them on television.
Navarro lost it last year when Republican Senator Steve Montenegro called her a liberal during a testy exchange on CNN’s New Day, August 28.
“Ana, anybody can say that they're a Republican. Granted, you are a Republican but you're also a liberal. And you can't run away from that. The reality is that you voted for Hillary Clinton,” the Senator said to Navarro, who exploded in anger at being called a liberal:
Why am I a liberal? Because I stand up for my community?Why am I a liberal? Because I want to defend the DREAM act kids? Why am I a liberal? Because I don't forget that I'm an immigrant and hispanic and I have a Latin accent when I speak English and I want to defend those who get racially profiled by people who would discriminate against us? Why am I a liberal? And yes, I voted for Hillary Clinton...
