Meghan McCain joins The View co-host Meghan McCain sits down with Ben Shapiro to talk about how she and her husband met, how they met, and how they ended up getting married. She also talks about why conservative men have better family values than liberal women, and why conservative women should never settle for less than a good one. Ben and Meghan also talk about what it's like being married to a conservative man in the media, and what it really means to be a conservative woman in a media that's run by people who don't share our values. The View is a podcast by The Weekly Standard. Hosted by Ben Shapiro. Produced by Alex Blumberg and Annie-Rose Strasser. Music by PSOVOD and tyops. Our theme song is Come Alone by Suneaters, courtesy of Lotuspool Records, and our ad music is by Build Buildings Records. If you like what you hear here, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe to our new podcast, Podchaser! Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. Rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast. We post polls! The opinions stated here are our own, and we post polls, questions and thoughts on both sides of the show in the comments section. Send us your thoughts and comments on the show! Thanks for listening to The Ben Shapiro Show and other media related to this podcast! Ben Shapiro's new book and other books written by you can be featured in the next episode of the next week's episode of The Weekly Outpost Outtro? by on Good Mythology, Good Morning America by Good Morning Outtrope by Bad Girl, Bad Girl Outtro by Good Girl Outro by . Thank you for your support and your thoughts on this podcast? Subscribe and review on Podcharity, Good Girl, Good Lady Outtro and Good Boy Outtro, by , and much more! by The Huffington Post in the podcast, by Big Girl, Big Girl Outlawyer, by Good Lady, by Big Lady Outro, by Mrs. John Rell and Good Lady. by Mr. Ben Shapiro, is a post on Good Lady outtro, and , to Good Lady Day, by Ms. Joe, on
00:00:00.000There just really isn't a lot of compromise, so I just thought if I'm gonna do this job this way, I just have to 100% not care what anybody thinks, but really not care what the left thinks.
00:00:10.000But what I have in return is so much better because I think that I feel gratitude in the fact that I can represent so many people who are voiceless in the mainstream media.
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00:01:33.000Megan, thanks so much for stopping by.
00:02:00.000By the way, my husband has, there's a tweet when we got engaged where someone had tweeted out, I had said something like, or like a publisher or someone had said, like, you could win a date with Meghan McCain.
00:02:54.000And it's one of the things I always say to people who are dating.
00:02:57.000People date for a whole host of reasons that are other than values.
00:02:59.000And I'm always saying to people, that is the biggest mistake.
00:03:02.000I think if you're serious, which I was when I met my husband about getting married and having kids and wanting to go to the next phase, I just found in my life dating, finally dating a conservative man was the one.
00:03:42.000No, I mean, I talk a lot and I get clocked a lot, but I don't actually have to Discuss politics with people who virulently disagree each and every day and be in the minority on a show where that happens So how do you deal with the the pressure number one of being the person who has to sort of carry the torch?
00:03:56.000For carry the flag for conservatism and and second of all, how do you deal with being in the minority on the show all the time?
00:04:02.000That's got to be a difficult dynamic Well, I mean, there's like a lot of different ways about it.
00:04:07.000The first thing is that it's a privilege, too, because a lot of people don't know any Republicans or don't know any conservatives, so I'm the voice they hear when they're tuning into The View, whether they like it or not.
00:04:19.000The pressure of it is that I'm not a Trumper, obviously.
00:04:23.000And sometimes I feel like I'm not exactly the right person for the job that maybe they should have had a full-blown Trump person in that seat because it's like sort of more reflective of where the party's at.
00:04:35.000I'm surprised I've lasted this long at the job and I say that like with respect but it's a really tough one and this is now my third year and I had the worst year of my life between August of 2018 and August of 2019 like I just had a horrible year.
00:05:22.000It feels extremely rewarding, and as cheesy as it sounds, when I was in college, I used to watch Elizabeth Hasselbeck on The View, and I was like, yes!
00:05:29.000And I remember her fight about the Iraq War with Rosie O'Donnell, and I remember being like, that's exactly what she should be saying, that's exactly, why are they talking to her like that?
00:05:37.000And I hope there's like, and this sounds very cheesy, but there's like a teenage girl someplace that thinks that about me.
00:05:43.000I mean, I'm not a teenager and I think that every time I watch The View lately.
00:06:17.000So that I think it's for whatever reason, my presence is very triggering to a lot of people and just who I am.
00:06:24.000And I know you can understand this as well, but there's something about being in a mainstream network and you have an obviously a mainstream show as well as a conservative who didn't go native.
00:07:14.000I have a great relationship with my brothers and my sisters, my mom.
00:07:16.000And I have honestly like people like you, people like Dana Lash, people like SC Cup, Who are also the few conservatives in mainstream media that I have built a relationship with it.
00:07:28.000I mean, I have called you at times where I'm like, I don't know if I can do this anymore.
00:07:34.000And I call Dana Lash and her husband sometimes and we like, you know, I'm like, am I the only person that thinks it's okay to still have an AR-15?
00:07:42.000Like, and then, you know, you're reminded that there are other people doing this.
00:07:45.000And then I'm also reminded that there are people that, you know, go into mines and fight in Iraq All day and getting my hair and makeup done and getting in a fight with Dwayne Mayhar really isn't the worst thing in the entire world.
00:07:59.000So I want to talk a little bit about how you got to this point because you have a really kind of interesting political path.
00:08:06.000So let's start from the very beginning.
00:08:08.000What was it like growing up with John McCain as a dad?
00:08:10.000Because that's got to be pretty intense.
00:08:12.000Um, you know, he was he's, you know, he's become this like, obviously, especially since his passing, he's become like, such an iconic figure for so many people.
00:08:23.000And I don't just say that because I'm on camera and because he's now no longer here.
00:08:27.000But He just let me be exactly who I was, which was wild and crazy and very loud and all these things that I don't know if a man of his generation would traditionally let his daughter become, which is why I think I'm so tough right now.
00:09:31.000And what they say about the first year I have found true.
00:09:34.000I know not everyone's experience is the same, but Getting through the first year, I feel a little better now.
00:09:42.000Like not a lot, but there's this like, okay, I got through a year since he passed.
00:09:46.000And so now I can, this is a very long winded answer to your question, but I feel, I feel his absence all the time, but I don't feel quite as anxious about it as I did.
00:09:55.000What was it like working on his campaigns?
00:09:58.000And by working, I had a blog that is very embarrassing called McCain Blogette, which was very cute and very sort of saccharine and sweet at the time.
00:10:09.000It was like a blog about being on the campaign with my dad.
00:10:19.000I mean, I was like, Hanging out, going to rallies.
00:10:22.000It was a very innocent and beautiful and optimistic time in my life because he obviously became the nominee and I got to see all the beautiful parts of politics, like how he inspired people, how much American can come together for different things.
00:10:35.000And that election on his end was so classy in so many different ways.
00:10:40.000And he never got, I was, it's so funny, I was talking about this with my friends in the car on the way over here.
00:10:45.000He like never got in the dirt with people.
00:10:46.000He never, he didn't obviously do all the things that Trump now does.
00:10:50.000And yeah, it bred my love and interest in politics, too.
00:10:55.000I mean, on that note, do you think that maybe it was a mistake for him not to, meaning that it sort of set the precedent for Republicans going, OK, well, if John McCain had only fought harder than he would have won in 2008, then we'd sort of did the same thing in 2012.
00:11:05.000If Mitt Romney had only fought harder and then Trump was like, I will throw this bathtub at someone and we're like, yeah.
00:11:11.000So I think it's a choice you make, obviously.
00:11:13.000And obviously it worked very well for Trump and it didn't work for Romney and it didn't work for my dad.
00:11:16.000But I will say that He had, when he ran for president the first time in the year 2000, he had said it was okay that he thought the Confederate flag should be flown at the South Carolina Capitol.
00:11:27.000And up until, like, weeks before he died, he still felt guilty about it and felt like it was the wrong decision.
00:11:34.000And the kind of man he was, he was so riddled with, I don't know if it was, like, the military guilt that he grew up with in the sense that, like, character was so important, but every decision he thought was a mistake, he just held on to and he would apologize.
00:11:47.000And if you ever watch his HBO documentary, he's very candid about it.
00:11:51.000And I think that he wouldn't have been able to live with himself and certainly, like, die in the way that he did with such grace and class and no regrets whatsoever in the sense that, like, he was like, I did everything my way.
00:12:04.000And I think had he gone down in the gutter, I think he would have regretted it.
00:12:08.000And he always said, I would rather lose an election than win the wrong way.
00:12:13.000Did he ever talk to you growing up about his experiences in Vietnam and what that was like?
00:12:17.000Yeah, but it wasn't often, and he never wanted anyone to feel bad for him, ever, under any circumstances.
00:12:23.000But as weird as this sounds, we would sometimes talk about it on Christmas, like during the day.
00:12:28.000I don't know why that was always sort of like the time when it felt okay to talk about, but there were different stories he would tell that were, I hope this doesn't sound macabre, but almost entertaining.
00:12:40.000he would tell us stories about like tapping on the walls between him and his fellow POWs and Bud Day and all, all his friends that he met in prison.
00:12:49.000And then the story, there's an infamous story about his cellmate sewing an American flag in his jacket.
00:12:56.000And then the prison guards finding it and beating him and beating him so badly that he is, his eye was almost swollen.
00:13:03.000And then my dad looked over and he was knitting the American flag again, all over again.
00:13:07.000So it was stories like that, that were beautiful as well as very sad, but we would talk about it, but not, not terribly often, Does it ever annoy you how the media has sort of rewritten their treatment of him?
00:13:20.000So now you get the, oh, if only we had a Republican like John McCain again.
00:13:24.000And in 2008, they were dumping all over him continuously for a year.
00:13:28.000I mean, I remember because I was raising money for him in LA.
00:13:31.000And I just remember the consistent attacks on his character.
00:13:34.000I mean, I remember folks who are now anchors at CNN at the time talking about how he was a racist and all of this sort of stuff.
00:13:42.000It seems sort of an attempt to draw contrast with Trump.
00:13:44.000It's like, you remember that great guy John McCain and how great he was?
00:13:55.000And I think that there, I mean, he didn't care.
00:13:57.000Like he really, for me, it's just interesting sometimes to hear people be like, you know, your dad's such an amazing person.
00:14:04.000And it's like, it's, I don't doubt his legacy.
00:14:07.000I don't doubt the newfound love for him that maybe people on the left and the center have found.
00:14:12.000But I remember people comparing him to George Wallace.
00:14:15.000I remember prominent people comparing him to George Wallace when he was running.
00:14:19.000I remember the things that were said and I try not to dwell on it because what's the point?
00:14:24.000But I do think it's strange that sort of the media sometimes the only comfortable Republican is someone who is no longer in power.
00:14:31.000That like, that's the good, like, Jeff Flake is an incredible Republican now, but talk to me four or five years ago when he has an A-plus rating from every conservative metric possible, but the second he comes out against Trump, now he's the real hero.
00:14:47.000And more balanced with the media when it comes to Republicans who are currently in power.
00:14:52.000And that the point is that we're going to disagree.
00:14:53.000The point is that we're going to have different beliefs and world views.
00:14:58.000It bothers people in my life a little more than me, like sort of the reinvention of what 2008 was like.
00:15:04.000But yeah, of course, I remember every single bad thing that's ever been said about my dad by anybody.
00:15:09.000And if anybody around me thinks I forgot or comes up to me and thinks I haven't forgotten, I assure you I remember.
00:15:15.000So, when it comes to your own politics and how they were shaped by your dad being your dad, were there any areas of significant disagreement when you were growing up with your dad on politics?
00:15:22.000Marriage equality, gay marriage, when I was growing up was always like a big divide between us and, you know, he was of a totally different generation and that's the only really big one.
00:15:33.000But I sort of took my... It's so funny because Abby Huntsman who's on the show with me is lovely.
00:15:39.000I always say we're like kind of miniature our dads.
00:15:42.000Like she's this very like centrist diplomat and I'm this sort of like Flamethrower, aggressive, like pretty hardcore conservative and it's so funny it's a good nature versus nurture argument because so much of my politics does sort of echo his and definitely has as I've gotten older but I've also gotten a lot more conservative in the Trump years and I don't know if it's just I feel like so many things have been illuminated through Trump becoming president but
00:16:12.000I see so much hypocrisy and the way I'm covered and the way the things I'm said are covered and the way other conservatives are covered and sometimes it's like and even when I was talking about coming on the show with you I was talking to a friend and it's like people are angry at you because you're a powerful conservative and conservatives in general are going to be by a certain swath of the media evil, bad, ugly, crazy, put the
00:16:46.000I think the reason that you come in for so much hate is because you are actually being included in the conversation, and that's what's so offensive to people.
00:16:53.000Meaning if you were just speaking your mind and you weren't at a table with a bunch of people who disagree and actually just having conversations and it getting combative but it actually being a conversation, then I don't think you'd be getting half of the flack that you're getting.
00:17:06.000Meaning that they don't spend an enormous amount of time in the media ripping on Rush Limbaugh or really even Sean Hannity at this point because those are people who are speaking to a particular audience.
00:17:15.000They're not debating with people on the left.
00:17:17.000And the great fear seems to be, for so many people who are on the hardcore left, even allowing a conservative in the room to have the conversation.
00:17:25.000And so that's been an issue, you know, for booking shows like this one.
00:17:28.000We reached out to every single Democratic presidential candidate.
00:17:31.000The only one who was willing to go on was Andrew Yang.
00:17:33.000I've treated everybody on the show really well, but one— Surprises me.
00:17:36.000Yeah, well, one of the big problems is that the hate and shame that is directed at people for even being willing to sit down and have a conversation is extraordinary.
00:17:45.000So to take an example, Pete Buttigieg originally signaled that he was willing to come on the show.
00:17:48.000He got hit so hard online that he immediately canceled it and said, I won't go on the show anymore.
00:17:52.000And so for you, because you're in it, My guess is that one of the reasons that there's so much hatred directed at you is because you are de facto on the stage, and there are a lot of people who would like to see you not on the stage because it's a legitimation of a viewpoint that a lot of people feel is just simply not legitimate, that it's inherently bad, it's inherently wrong, and can't be included as part of the conversation.
00:18:12.000Yeah, I mean, I think that's true of any prominent conservative that sort of has crossover appeal past, and I love a lot of people on Fox News, I don't love everybody, but I love a lot of people on Fox News, and I think when you sort of like, as you've done, like exit the conservative media bubble and you have a voice elsewhere, it becomes very threatening because, you know, you could change a mind possibly one way or another.
00:18:35.000And it's interesting being this voice right now because I was not taken seriously at all for a really long time.
00:18:45.000I think I've told you before that, like, no one finds it more ironic and humorous that, like, I'm the great threat to liberal ideals.
00:18:53.000When I was saying I was like the queen rhino.
00:18:56.000Party girl for so long and people ask like how I got here and a lot of things I grew up number one I'm almost 35 I'm 35 in a few weeks my politics shifted as it always does with most rational people as you get older and then I saw that as much as I have in the past wanted to meet in the middle with people which I still Do.
00:19:18.000But I know that, again, it doesn't matter how much I meet in the middle on some things, nothing is going to be perfect enough unless I see it exactly your way.
00:19:27.000If I say, okay, let's have a conversation about background checks, that's not good enough because you want to take the hell your guns away, whatever Beto said.
00:19:36.000And so I think the good and part of my life is that I've learned that There just really isn't a lot of compromise.
00:19:42.000So I just thought if I'm going to do this job this way, I just have to 100% not care what anybody thinks, but really not care what the left thinks.
00:19:51.000And every fun party I've ever been invited to is gone.
00:19:54.000Every interesting, you know, like social experience I ever had, over.
00:19:59.000But what I have in return is so much better because I think that I feel gratitude in the fact that I can represent so many people who are voiceless in the mainstream media.
00:20:09.000Let's talk about your sort of political evolution.
00:20:11.000So you referred to it a little bit earlier.
00:20:13.000And I know that from abroad, I watched as it seemed like you got more conservative.
00:20:16.000But in what areas do you think that you've got more conservative?
00:20:22.000I guess you'd have to, like, sort of pick the subject.
00:20:24.000But I think I just feel like the way government is run in in the way that the Republican Party feels like limited government, small government is by far a better and more efficient way for the government to be run on a social aspect it's so funny I believe in the family unit and the importance of having children and the importance of a two-parent household in a way and I don't mean that in a negative way towards single parents
00:20:52.000but I just it's been interesting as you get older I sort of came up to all the cliches that people do as they say I think if you're young and you're not liberal you don't have a heart and if you're old and conservative you don't have a brain I never had a heart so we're good.
00:21:06.000And I think just being bullied so much by people on the left sort of turned I was like you nothing I ever do will ever be good enough and Ever.
00:21:15.000No fight I fight will ever be good enough, and I just see a lot of hypocrisy in how things are covered.
00:21:19.000Um, and which people get on TV for what reason.
00:21:22.000Like, Michael Avenatti's a really great example.
00:21:24.000And it doesn't matter because he hates me and he tweets at me all the time, but I remember being like, this person does not deserve a platform.
00:21:30.000I think he's taking advantage of this woman, of Stormy Daniels.
00:21:34.000I don't understand why he's getting the kind of platform and attention he has.
00:21:37.000The only reason why he has this kind of platform and attention is because he hates Trump.
00:21:40.000And that doesn't seem completely ethical to me.
00:21:43.000So it's seeing a lot of hypocrisy in the media as well.
00:21:46.000And also the fact that I didn't go totally psycho never Trump, that I still just try and see both sides, has really angered a lot of people.
00:21:55.000And by the way, I have the best reason of all of you to go psycho never Trump.
00:22:00.000And I just try and be fair and balanced, as cliche as that sounds, in the way that I take on and analyze every issue.
00:22:08.000Like people are very angry that I have not turned into someone who just can't say, you know, Screw Trump, he's a maniac every five seconds.
00:22:16.000But I don't think that's fair or valid to his supporters, to the viewers of The View, and to Republicans who struggle with this president in so many different ways.
00:23:01.000Now, obviously, I came under fire from a lot of his allies in 2016 because I took a view that I was not going to vote for either of the main candidates.
00:23:06.000I didn't think either of them met my standard for being president.
00:23:09.000But obviously, you have been attacked by President Trump.
00:23:13.000Your dad obviously was attacked by President Trump.
00:23:15.000It was one of the things that drove me away from voting for him in 2016.
00:23:19.000So what's been your view of Trump and evolution of your view on Trump?
00:23:23.000It's hard because I try and take it issue by issue every day.
00:23:28.000And there are some decisions he's made that I agree with.
00:23:33.000There are other decisions and things he does and says that I think are just absolutely insane on every single plausible level but I could never come to him because I still believe character matters.
00:23:45.000I still believe that decency and ethics matter and the way he lives his life and conducts himself and the things he says not only about my family but about
00:23:53.000So many others is just not what I want for the leader of the free world and I am ferociously protective of my father and his legacy and like an animal and I Will never forgive it ever as long as I don't care what other people have done I don't care how other people have moved on I will never be able to ever and he continues to do it since he has passed Which is just monstrous and horrific and deeply painful to my family and he doesn't care which makes it even weirder
00:24:22.000I mean, that must make it pretty difficult for you to be as objective as you are.
00:24:26.000I mean, you started by talking about the policies that you like versus the stuff that you don't like.
00:24:30.000And on a softer level, I mean, I can say that I've said publicly that my opinion of President Trump's character has never changed one iota from the time that he came on the public stage in 2015 and came down the magical escalator and all of that.
00:24:44.000The only thing that's changed my view of him at all is that I thought he was not going to govern conservatively, and actually he has governed fairly conservatively in a variety of areas.
00:24:52.000Moving forward to 2020, my calculation on voting for him has shifted for two reasons.
00:24:57.000One is because the status quo that was not avoided in 2016 was not avoided in 2016.
00:25:19.000And then point number two is that, you know, he is the damage that I hope to avoid by not voting for him has either been incurred or it has not been incurred.
00:25:30.000And he is governed more conservatively than I thought he would.
00:25:32.000So that that sort of alleviated my fears on political level.
00:25:38.000I assume you're not going to vote for him in 2020.
00:25:41.000What's what's your sort of math on on 2020?
00:25:44.000I mean, right now, I think everyone wants to see if it's going to be Biden or a hyper progressive Warren or Sanders.
00:25:52.000Warren and Sanders, it's all too much for me.
00:25:54.000It's just, it's, I mean, and I just, that's the simplest way I can put it.
00:25:57.000I don't believe in democratic socialism.
00:25:58.000So many of their policies, I think, are dangerous and could lead us down a path that, much like Trump, we wouldn't, in a different way, we couldn't necessarily come back from.
00:26:08.000Um, I could never vote for President Trump for all the personal reasons.
00:26:11.000And for me, it's just, it's just too much.
00:26:14.000And if he could have just been a decent human being and not, and you know, not said so many incendiary things, I think, I think I'm actually like the beta test example of a conservative woman who's just been so turned off by his behavior and his, you know, for everything is the way he acts, the way he talks, the way he treats his wife, et cetera, that I think I'm the example of a woman who just can't come to terms with it.
00:26:41.000It's his problem that he's turned off people like me for so many reasons.
00:26:44.000And when it comes to Democrats, I just hope, I hope that Biden ends up running as the man I know him to be and is, you know, the sort of classic Democrat that he was for a long time.
00:26:56.000I mean, I don't know Senator Biden from Adam other than what I see from him.
00:27:07.000Like, I'm the wrong girl to ask because I love him.
00:27:09.000I mean, I'm like really the wrong person.
00:27:10.000Like, I fully stay on the show too as well, which is also, by the way, why I don't know if I'm always the best Republican on the show because I have this personal relationship with him.
00:27:20.000And I think, as you know, when people become people, it's hard to dislike them.
00:27:24.000And he really, his son, Beau, died of the same cancer, glioblastoma, that my dad did.
00:27:30.000So when I was going through the process, I'm someone who really wants like facts and I want to know what things are going to look like and feel like.
00:27:36.000And I don't like surprises and doctors who are incredible.
00:27:39.000And my father had like the greatest doctors medical care can find.
00:28:04.000What's the difference between hospice and palliative care?
00:28:07.000And he would pick up the phone and Coach me through it.
00:28:09.000And I have cried on the phone to that man more times than I'm sure he knew what he was getting into when we orig- and we originally, um, he was friends with my dad when I was growing up, but we originally really reconnected on the show, of all things, and it was not last November, but the November before, and my dad was in the hospital at Walter Reed and he had had another, um, he had pneumonia or he had had another tumor grow, I don't remember, and I was just a mess.
00:28:34.000I probably shouldn't have gone on air that day, but after the show I was gonna go back to D.C.
00:28:37.000and He was there and I just lost it on air and you can Google it.
00:28:41.000And he really coached me through it and was just so incredibly lovely and nurturing.
00:28:48.000And in the same way that Trump being such a vicious asshole to my family clouds my judgment, the love that Senator, I mean, I call him Joe, but gave to me clouds any opinion I have of him.
00:29:14.000Frankly, I mean, even for somebody who doesn't know him, and I've been critical of Vice President Biden, you know, I'm very critical of him, particularly on policy grounds.
00:29:26.000Really, like he seems like everybody I've talked to from Ted Cruz to you has said that Joe Biden is a nice guy, that he's a decent person, and yet he's getting hit with he's a racist, that he's a bigot, that he's so old that he can't hold it together.
00:29:38.000Now, frankly, I think the fact that he's older is going to help him in a general election because he's really unthreatening.
00:29:43.000I mean, the whole kind of dynamic of unthreatening older fellow who is not Elizabeth Warren and doesn't want to destroy the economy versus volatile Donald Trump, I think actually cuts in Joe Biden's favor.
00:29:53.000But the attacks on him have been extraordinary, I thought.
00:30:00.000And I hate ageism in general, because again, like my dad was up until he got sick.
00:30:06.000He was 81, almost 81 when he died, like a few days away from being 81.
00:30:10.000And he was, you know, hiking the Grand Canyon and working like crazy.
00:30:14.000So I don't necessarily like buy into just because you're old, you can't do your job well.
00:30:18.000But I think the attacks are, I, when Julian Castro was making fun of Joe Biden's agent last debate, I thought I was gonna throw my computer across the room and out the window.
00:30:44.000And B, I think Democrats cannibalize themselves and they're going to eat their own.
00:30:47.000And if you want purity and you want this progressive ideal that I know I'm being told every day by a lot of people that Elizabeth Warren can win over the middle of the country, I'm not sold on it.
00:31:00.000And I've interviewed her, I think twice.
00:31:02.000I'm not sold yet because I should be more won over by some of the like folksy stories and things like that.
00:31:40.000But even as late as the early 2000s, when she was getting all sorts of attention because she'd written this book about bankruptcy, a lot of her policies were based in the idea that, it's what she called the two-income trap, the idea that maybe women in the workplace had actually created certain obstacles for families moving forward.
00:31:55.000That wasn't a case for women not being in the workplace.
00:32:10.000I mean, his aren't falling, hers are rising.
00:32:14.000I don't know what that ultimately means, but I know that, I mean, it's so radical, it's so far from where the Democratic Party was even, you know, three years ago, and if she's the future, I really don't know where the hell independents in this country are left, because I know a lot of people, a lot of people in my life will secretly vote for Trump over this.
00:32:33.000They're not going to tell you because they don't want to be shamed about it.
00:32:35.000I have so many friends who will call me and they're saying they're making me vote for Trump.
00:32:38.000And it's never like, I want to vote for Trump.
00:32:40.000It's always, they're making me because I have a lot of friends who were sort of holdouts in 2016.
00:32:43.000And then they'll look at the Democratic Party and they'll say to themselves, I have no choice.
00:32:47.000Like it's what, what is what Trump says at his rallies where he's like, you may not like me, but you have no choice.
00:32:51.000Well, when I'm looking at the radical Democrats, I don't feel like I have tons of choice.
00:32:57.000And I wonder what happened to the Democratic Party and who is responsible for this because And is it like did Trump do it?
00:33:03.000Did Trump create this like sort of like yin to the yang in it?
00:33:07.000I don't really know how it got to this place.
00:33:09.000Did Bernie just unleash this dragon that took hold that has taken over in so many spaces?
00:33:13.000I don't know the answer but I do think that's the future.
00:33:17.000And I think it's very scary. - Yeah, I mean, you've talked about this on the show and gotten just shellacked for it, but when you talk about the intersectionalism of the Democratic Party, it is pretty frightening.
00:33:27.000And the entire left is now brought into this.
00:33:30.000A large segment of the left is brought into this, including virtue signaling about intersectionality in bizarre and strange ways.
00:33:38.000It's one of the reasons why, you know, to go back to Biden for a moment, when I when I look at Biden and Biden makes a speech in which he talks about the original vision of the country and is trying to fulfill that, I think that's kind of in line with just kind of traditional American politics.
00:33:50.000And then you get Beto on stage talking about how America is founded on slavery and rooted in slavery and how we have to all acknowledge that every inequality in American life is rooted in slavery.
00:34:00.000And I think to myself, I don't know what happened to these people.
00:34:04.000Well, Biden also says, like, not every Republican is a bad person.
00:34:07.000I know plenty of good Republican friends, and he's just been, you know, taking so much heat for even silly statements like that.
00:34:14.000Like, I don't understand why that's offensive to people.
00:34:16.000Mayor Pete has really disappointed me.
00:34:20.000When I first when he first came on The View, I was like, this is a guy from the Midwest who really gets America, who really gets like the middle of the country, could probably win over all these Rust Belt voters that Hillary ended up losing.
00:34:31.000And then for me, his his take on abortion is so extreme and so out of the realm of where I think most Americans, even if you're pro-choice are, he gave an interview where he was talking about his interpretation of the Bible maybe could be birth doesn't begin until a baby is born.
00:34:49.000And I'm paraphrasing what he said, like, Brett, did you see that interview?
00:34:52.000And I don't know where that's coming from.
00:35:43.000And then he got into this whole Pastor Pete routine, and he's quoting the Bible more frequently than I do.
00:35:49.000And I don't do it all that often, but I just kept thinking to myself, why are we getting Bible class with Pete Buttigieg?
00:35:56.000Why does he think that it's a smart strategy to tell every Christian in the country that they're misinterpreting the Bible and that abortion on demand is biblically mandated?
00:36:06.000And I don't know if it's just sort of the temptation to go very progressive because that's what you think you need to win during primaries and maybe he just wasn't thinking about the general but he's the one in particular not to like you know spend so much time trashing him because they don't I still think he's probably a good and decent person, but I think his politics are much different than I had originally.
00:36:26.000I mean, it definitely raises the more general question and of social media itself.
00:36:32.000So you've been engaged and not so engaged and engaged in social media.
00:37:20.000It was like a chat room when you were 17 and people were asking age, sex, location.
00:37:23.000Like, it was like a completely different thing.
00:37:26.000And now it's, we have to be super serious, we have to treat every tweet as though it is a presidential proclamation, and we are going to go back and treat the old tweets, when you were just joking in 2007, as though that was a presidential proclamation, and we're just going to cancel everybody.
00:37:41.000So, what's your advice for dealing with the cancel culture, since you've been subjected to it several times?
00:37:46.000I can't believe I haven't been canceled.
00:37:49.000I go in every day of my job assuming I'm going to get fired for something I say, and that's not reflective of ABC or The View.
00:37:55.000It's just reflective of the times we're living in.
00:37:57.000Like, I don't even keep – like, I keep just enough clothes in my closet that I could take it in a bag to go at any time.
00:38:03.000Because some of the things – sometimes I say things where I'm like – and I'm actually pretty insulated.
00:38:08.000I'm pretty surrounded by Mostly conservatives at this point, just because socially it's a little easier, and I just don't want to be virtue-signaled at in my free time.
00:38:18.000But I can't believe I am on mainstream media with being as conservative as I am.
00:38:24.000And I'm, you know, as you said, you're like, compared to you, you're a moderate, you know?
00:38:28.000- Right, the good news is you're gonna get some strange new respect after this interview.
00:38:32.000- Okay. - Just because you're sitting next to me, this means that you are now back in moderate territory. - And you'll get some hate, so.
00:38:38.000And then you'll go back on The View and they'll realize you're conservative and then you're in trouble again.
00:38:41.000So enjoy the two hours between when this episode airs. - It's interesting 'cause when I told some people I was coming on here, it's like people have, I'm drawn to people who get the same reactions I do where they're like, "He's incredible." Like I listen to him every day!
00:38:58.000What, you know, and I think people have that reaction to me where they're like, you know, you're either like the voice of reason or you're a I'm a psychopath maniac that's destroying everything, but I legitimately think I could be canceled any day because there are things that I think and I'm like, oh, we all think that.
00:39:14.000And then I go on TV and I'm like, oh, apparently that's an extremely controversial thing to say.
00:39:18.000And by the time I get home, I'm like, I don't understand why what I said is so controversial at all.
00:39:24.000Because things that 10 minutes ago weren't controversial are really controversial now.
00:39:29.000And so, and I'm not good at censoring myself or Staying on script or anything that I think traditional hosts have to do in a lot of ways.
00:39:37.000The good news for you is that the left isn't either.
00:39:40.000Because the line is so constantly shifting, people who are woke one minute are completely un-woke the next.
00:39:46.000That is what's happening to Biden, is that he was hewing to all of the traditional standards and then the line just radically moved and suddenly he was on the other side of the line, according to this group.
00:39:55.000And you see it happen to legitimately full-on leftists.
00:40:14.000But I mean, I do wonder how many people will be left Yeah, I mean, it's one of the reasons why subscribing to independent stuff is important, because you can see the pressure that's being brought to bear on corporations and being brought to bear on advertisers.
00:40:29.000I mean, earlier this year, we had this bizarre, stupid situation in which I was speaking at the March for Life.
00:40:35.000And this is, of course, very controversial.
00:40:36.000And I made the, what I thought was completely inarguable comment that you should not kill babies before they're born based on the possibility that those babies might grow up to commit crimes, right?
00:40:46.000The Freakonomics argument that, well, abortion was responsible for dropping crime rates.
00:40:49.000And it's like, well, you don't get to kill children because they might commit a crime later.
00:40:53.000And I said, you know, as a pro-lifer, even if there were baby Hitler unborn, I wouldn't kill that baby.
00:41:41.000It's like a chicken or the egg concept.
00:41:44.000And actually on my first date with my husband, it was one of the questions he asked me.
00:41:47.000He was very surprised that I was pro-life.
00:41:49.000And I was like a few drinks in and I was like, I think abortion is abhorrent and I could never do it.
00:41:55.000And you know, I don't understand the conversations that are being had right now." And he was very surprised.
00:42:00.000And then when I got on The View, I think it was just that, and this is no shade to anyone who's sat in my chair before me because it's a very hard job, but I think a lot of women that sat in that chair before me were like, well, I think that you should make your own choice, but the government shouldn't regulate it.
00:43:32.000I don't give a shit what anybody thinks of me anymore.
00:43:35.000My, you know, I've been through so much last year and in my life and I've seen so much and felt so much.
00:43:40.000There is something liberating about being almost 35 and going through so many things.
00:43:46.000And, and let me like put a little context.
00:43:47.000Last year, between August of 2018 and August of 2019, my father passed away from terminal brain cancer.
00:43:54.000Um, uh, employee of my husband's who was a friend of both of ours, I know incredible up and coming talent, Brie Payton, who I'm sure you know, passed away in a freak reef, freak virus.
00:44:05.000A few months later, our dog, our family dog died in a pipe accident.
00:44:09.000And then I got pregnant, not like surprisingly, I was not, we were not planning.
00:44:15.000And then found out I was having a miscarriage soon after all the while being trashed in the media.
00:44:21.000I was pregnant when I went on Seth Meyers, and so the experience of last year, I was like, what else can happen to me?
00:44:29.000So I don't care anymore what people think to me, think about me, because some of the worst things that I could have ever thought happened, and I'm not, I don't want sympathy, and I don't want anyone to cry me a river, and I don't need like a tiny violin, but I experienced a lot of tragedy last year.
00:44:44.000And so coming out the other side of it, nothing really impacts me anymore.
00:44:47.000So if you're mad that I'm pro-life and you're mad that like, you know, I don't feel the same way you feel about socialism, I don't care.
00:45:09.000So, most women who have miscarriages seem to be embarrassed about it, or at least don't want to talk about it publicly for whatever reason, for reasons of privacy, because it's an element of grief.
00:45:19.000But you were brave, and I thought it was a brave and wonderful thing.
00:45:21.000I mean, we talked about it beforehand, obviously, for you to write that op-ed.
00:45:26.000Yeah, thank you again for being, and again, I hope it's not weird, but you really have been such an incredible source of support for me and my career, and recently, and it's There are good people in this industry that will be friends.
00:45:39.000And I think this industry gets a bad rap that we all, like, hate each other and are so competitive, but there are really good people that will support you when you need it.
00:45:48.000I mean, really about what being pregnant meant to you.
00:45:51.000And I was wondering if you could talk about that for people who may have missed the piece.
00:45:54.000What that experience was like and how it changed or deepened your beliefs on the pro-life issue.
00:46:00.000Well, I know not all women, like, every woman's pregnancy and feelings about their body are different, but for me, I knew I was pregnant or something was going on because I got sick really quickly and I just, like, I don't want to get into graphic detail, but, like, my body, I was like, I'm definitely pregnant.
00:46:19.000And I was really having a hard time on air, on The View, and then on Seth Meyers, like, I think I probably would have done a better job had I not been pregnant because I was just not feeling well.
00:46:29.000I mean, we're not going to get into that, but that was not your fault.
00:46:31.000he's an asshole anyway thank you I could have I would have been sharper like the way we are now if I wasn't so sick and I just you know I was sort of getting as dumb as it sounds I'm married and I'm almost 35 but it was still you find out you're pregnant it's it's an intense thing and I motherhood isn't something that I really had thought about until I married Ben because I didn't know if I was ever gonna find somebody I want to get married to so I was pregnant and then um right before uh this New York Times photo shoot that the view did
00:46:46.000And I, motherhood isn't something that I really had thought about until I married Ben, because I didn't know if I was ever going to find somebody I want to get married to.
00:46:55.000And then, um, right before, uh, this New York times photo shoot that the view did, I got a call from my doctor, which I was assuming was just her telling me my blood work was fine because I'm tough and nothing bad happens to me.
00:47:07.000It like never even occurred to me that I could have a miscarriage because I'm made of steel.
00:47:12.000And she told me like, you know, there, this blood work isn't looking good.
00:47:16.000And you know, you're more than likely going to have a miscarriage.
00:47:19.000And I was like, that, no, like I'm the toughest chick ever.
00:47:23.000Like that's not what's going to happen.
00:47:26.000And I just felt like there's so many people in media who struggle with fertility, have miscarriages and reached out to me, but don't talk about it publicly.
00:47:58.000And I felt so much shame and I felt like If I can go on TV and talk about grief, if I can eulogize my dad in front of like billions of people, then I can talk about this.
00:48:11.000And so I decided to write about it because I knew there would be other women who would feel less alone.
00:48:15.000And there's something about television, and particularly daytime television, that kind of the only stories you tend to hear are like, I'm pregnant!
00:48:31.000And I'm, you know, I. What's the point of having a platform if you're not going to talk about things that are hard?
00:48:36.000It was an amazing thing because it really was, because, again, there are a lot of women who have gone through this and come out the other side and and have beautiful, healthy children.
00:48:47.000And not only that, it really I mean, you talked a lot in the context of your connection with your unborn child, even as early as that.
00:49:20.000Like I remember like I have wonderful friends, but they like I remember when I texted them being like there's going to I think the doctor thinks there's going to be a problem.
00:49:28.000They went to my apartment and like returned the maternity clothes I had bought and like hid the maternity books.
00:49:36.000And I remember being like I have amazing people in my life because obviously I don't want to go home and see that.
00:49:40.000But then I was like, but I wanted to read that book.
00:49:43.000And, you know, I had acclimated myself at the idea of becoming a mother.
00:49:47.000And now I'm just trying to figure it out because I want I need God to guide me a little bit right Well as I've told you, you should.
00:49:57.000You'll be a great mom and Ben will be a great dad and you should totally do it.
00:50:00.000My husband's the best throughout all of it though.
00:50:02.000Like I have to say, without his foundation of faith, and he's deeply religious.
00:50:05.000I'm religious, but my husband and his family are Anglican, and they have an amazing foundation of faith that I have really needed and clung to in the past year and a half of my life.
00:50:17.000And I believe in God for a lot of different reasons, but Ben was 100% the right man for me through my life right now and the amount of tragedy I've had to go through because he's just like steady as a rock and he believes in God's plan.
00:50:30.000And he just always reminds me that we aren't in control, he is.
00:50:34.000And I'm a control freak, and I'm always like, but, you know, and I just, I know it sounds probably saccharine for your show, but I really do think God brought him to me for a reason.
00:50:44.000For a second, let's talk about sort of your religious beliefs.
00:50:46.000So you don't really talk about that very much, and for most of your career you were perceived as, at least early career sort of, as I said before, sort of urbane in the entertainment media.
00:50:56.000Your dad wasn't super overtly religious, and so I have no idea what your religious kind of affiliation was or your religious beliefs are.
00:51:04.000I was raised Baptist, and I would still consider myself Baptist, although, like, I go to my husband's family's church when we go to church.
00:51:13.000I go back and forth between here and D.C., and sometimes I just can't do it.
00:51:17.000I don't adhere to every letter of the law in the Bible, and this is going to sound maybe a little strange, but I find that I feel God in my faith the most in nature, and my dad was the same way.
00:51:30.000like in the deserts in Arizona at the Grand Canyon.
00:51:32.000Our ranch, if you ever see pictures, I mean, it's like on a creek and it's in a canyon.
00:51:39.000And over the break when I was on hiatus, my husband and I went to Wyoming and I was not, I just wasn't in a good place.
00:51:46.000Obviously there was a lot of drama with my show and a lot of terrible rumors everywhere about me and I had just gone through a miscarriage.
00:51:53.000And I was like, I woke up super early in the morning and I was like, I really need a sign.
00:52:00.000And my husband and I went fishing and we saw a moose in the wild, like the distance between here and like where that green screen is right there.
00:52:09.000And our fishing guide was like, I've never seen this in the entire time.
00:52:13.000I've been doing this for X amount of years.
00:52:18.000Like, I know they're really dangerous.
00:52:20.000And I took a video of it and it was, I felt like, how can, that's the most obvious example of why I'm a woman of faith.
00:52:27.000I asked God to send me a sign and then like there's, and I know that it's not always that simple, but like there are reminders if you're looking for them.
00:52:34.000And I have always been religious, but I,
00:52:37.000I find that I'm being married to a man who can quote my husband was homeschooled and so he can quote scripture like off the top of his head and being married to a man who can do that has also deepened our faith and just when my I felt when my dad was originally diagnosed the first thing Ben did was like he was like we have to pray together now and I think he has also strengthened he's he's been such an amazing influence on me in so many different ways and my relationship with God Ben has definitely help strengthen.
00:53:07.000But I'm not a, unlike Mayor Pete, I don't think that I have all the answers, but I do believe in heaven and an afterlife.
00:53:15.000And I, you know, believe in all the normal things that everyone believes from the Bible.
00:53:19.000And my dad was always fond of saying that, you know, in Orthodox Judaism, the other sort of term that people don't use so much, but is used in sort of the Jewish community, is observant Judaism.
00:53:26.000And my dad was always fond of saying that being an observant Jew doesn't mean just that you observe the principles.
00:53:31.000It means if you observe God in the world around you, then you're doing your job as an observant religious person.
00:53:36.000And so that sounds sort of like what you're talking about as far as sort of observing.
00:53:39.000Everything can either be a coincidence or it could just be proof of a plan, and it's up to you how to interpret all of that.
00:53:45.000I don't believe in coincidences and I think too many weird things have happened in my life and I think if I didn't have faith, my dad and I didn't, he wasn't an overtly religious man but he, his faith in God really deepened when he was in prison and at the end of his life we really started talking about God in the afterlife a lot and I found that his interpretation of it is the same as mine and I think it makes every, it makes pain easier to handle, it makes
00:54:13.000Surrendering to the things you can't control a lot easier.
00:54:16.000But there was a period of time where I was like, God, I'm going to have to have some conversations, but I don't know.
00:54:23.000I don't know how you get through every day without having some foundation of faith.
00:54:27.000Like, I don't know what, and it's no judgment because everybody lives their own way, but if you believe in nothing, like, I don't think I could get up every morning and do anything if I didn't believe that there was a higher purpose and a higher calling and that I won't get to see my dad at some point on the other side.
00:54:42.000So in one second, I have one final question for Meghan McCain.
00:54:45.000It is the most crucial final question I have ever asked to a guest.