Meghan McCain schooled her co-hosts on Friday’s The View, after they laughed off conservative “outrage” at President Biden insulting leaders of red states lifting mask mandates as “Neanderthal.”
Each liberal host took delight in mocking conservatives “clutching their pearls” at the president’s divisive trash talk. After all, conservatives were “anti-science” and Biden was right to insult them, plus Trump was so much worse, so nothing insulting Biden says can compare, they argued:
(click “expand”):
SUNNY HOSTIN: [Y]ou know, all the pearl clutching over language is really [scoffs] something to me when you had four years of -- of, you know, of someone speaking in the lowest -- lowest of terms and debasing people and degrading people. I think that President Biden has every right to feel this way….it quite frankly is Neanderthal thinking to take these restrictions away and take that mask mandate away...I think he actually put the term kind of nicely. I don't think -- I think I would have called it something worse than Neanderthal thinking, quite frankly.
...
SARA HAINES: [I]t's kind of an uncivilized choice to not wear a mask when the science speaks loud and clear, and I think that it's, you know, again as Sunny mentioned, on the heels of someone who could offend people four times in a sentence, picking on an extinct homo Sapien, seems like pretty safe ground for me.
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ANA NAVARRO: [I] think they expect the whole week screaming, and clutching their pearls about Mr. Potato head wearing a purse, about Dr. Seuss and now about Neanderthals.
But after all the mockery, Meghan McCain schooled her co-hosts on how this showcased Biden’s hypocrisy and was a marker of the left's disdain for the right, citing Hillary Clinton’s similar “deplorables” comment:
I think unfortunately the problem is if you are President Biden, you have said that this is going to be the soul of the nation that's going to come back. We're going to have a complete and utter paradigm shift. Angels are going to come down from the sky and there will be nothing but unity in the country. It reminds me of Hillary Clinton's deplorable comment which a lot of people on the left wrote off, and it really did end up hurting her. It's a self-inflicted wound. You guys can laugh and say, oh, it's a joke or whatever, but Republicans across the country already feel like people on the left think they're dumb red necks, they’re just stupid deplorables in baskets and nobody cares with their trucks and flags. That's what Republicans think the media thinks of them, and that's why I was surprised to hear him throw around that language.... I think when you have Jen Psaki sort of blowing off Republican questions and Republican talking points, all it does is going to help Republicans be more tribal and think that we're just deplorable Neanderthals. The left has no place for us, so there's no unity whatsoever, and I think it's -- I think it's really unfortunate. I don't like it at all.
She also noted the president’s “bigger problem” was his hiding from the press, after the White House video feed was remarkably cut off abruptly Wednesday right after he asked the press for questions. McCain pointed out the stark difference between Biden and his predecessors being open to the press:
I also think he has much bigger problems right now including the fact that he hasn't had one press conference yet. He's actually the first president in 100 years not to do a press conference in the first 23 days. President Trump did -- I'm sorry. First 100 days. President Trump did -- Obama did in the first 20 days and President Trump did in 27 days....
Joy Behar tried to defend Biden and Clinton, saying nothing was as bad as what Trump’s said:
“I think that the deplorables word came before Trump, before we knew how deplorable he was. So in reaction to Trump, nothing sounds that bad because of how bad he was,” she rationalized.
Behar tried to make the case that Trump was less open to the press: “He was afraid to take calls. He would do it on the tarmac at airports!” she added.
McCain pushed back on that too. “But it was President Trump doing one-on-one interviews with the press corps which President Biden has not done,” she pointed out, citing that viral video of the WH feed being cut.
McCain finished the segment calling out a point of media coverage hypocrisy in rhetoric from presidents:
I will also say that President Trump called the gang group MS-13 animals and the media jumped all over it for weeks. I have no problem calling vicious gang members animal and that was something the media just took and ran with, and I think if it's not okay to call gang members animals, but it's okay to call Republicans who you know are in the middle of the country ‘Neanderthals’ it just seems like a lot of hypocrisy.
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Read the transcript below:
The View
3/5/2021
JOY BEHAR: Isn't this manufactured outrage, or is this a real problem, Meghan?
MEGHAN MCCAIN: I actually don't think this is manufactured. I think unfortunately the problem is if you are President Biden, you have said that this is going to be the soul of the nation that's going to come back. We're going to have a complete and utter paradigm shift. Angels are going to come down from the sky and there will be nothing but unity in the country. It reminds me of Hillary Clinton's deplorable comment which a lot of people on the left wrote off, and it really did end up hurting her. It's a self-inflicted wound. You guys can laugh and say, oh, it's a joke or whatever, but Republicans across the country already feel like people on the left think they're dumb red necks, they’re just stupid deplorables in baskets and nobody cares with their trucks and flags. That's what Republicans think the media thinks of them, and that's why I was surprised to hear him throw around that language.
I also think he has much bigger problems right now including the fact that he hasn't had one press conference yet. He's actually the first president in 100 years not to do a press conference in the first 23 days. President Trump did -- I'm sorry. First 100 days. President Trump did -- Obama did in the first 20 days and President Trump did in 27 days. I think this just didn’t help and I think when you have Jen Psaki sort of blowing off Republican questions and Republican talking points, all it does is going to help Republicans be more tribal and think that we're just deplorable Neanderthals. The left has no place for us, so there's no unity whatsoever, and I think it's -- I think it's really unfortunate. I don't like it at all.
JOY BEHAR: I think that the deplorables word came before Trump, before we knew how deplorable he was. So in reaction to Trump, nothing sounds that bad because of how bad he was, and then he had -- he might have had a conference, you know, his press conference right away, but then he dropped out. We never saw him again. He was afraid to take calls. He would do it on the tarmac at airports, and Joe Biden has also accomplished a lot of things in a very short time.
MCCAIN: But it was President Trump doing one-on-one interviews with the press corps which President Biden has not done. In fact, he has a video that's gone viral saying, we're waiting to talk to the press and then it just goes to a gray screen. There's confusion about why he won't stand in front of the press corps right now. I will also say that President Trump called the gang group MS-13 animals and the media jumped all over it for weeks. I have no problem calling vicious gang members animal and that was something the media just took and ran with, and I think if it's not okay to call gang members animals, but it's okay to call Republicans who you know are in the middle of the country ‘Neanderthals’ it just seems like a lot of hypocrisy.
BEHAR:No, but let’s remember what you’re saying there, and what was just corrected, he didn’t call people Neanderthals, he said it was Neanderthal thinking.
MCCAIN: Potato, potato.
