Meghan McCain announces her departure from "The View" at the end of the show’s season, saying “this was not an easy decision.”

“I’m just eternally grateful to have had this opportunity here so, seriously, thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart.”


JjflWus3RR8

Good riddance, NutMeg!

Did you know John McCain was her father? If you didn’t, just wait five minutes; she’ll tell you at least once.

Meghan McCain's exit underscores the problem with The View's remote taping during the pandemic as basic respect seemed to have broken down (https://variety.com/2021/tv/columns/meghan-mccain-leaving-the-view-covid-crisis-1235010009/)

"What’s been lost on The View in its remote-taping era isn’t debate, really — it’s good debate," says Daniel D'Addario "The show literally makes its name on framing the political in personal terms, and a certain degree of cut-and-thrust in strongly-felt debate is nothing new. Too often over the past year-plus, though, McCain in particular was at the center of arguments that verged so far beyond professional disagreement as to be discomfiting. There was a sort of vicarious embarrassment to watching co-workers who, deprived of the camaraderie that necessarily comes with sharing physical space, seemed to have forgotten how to speak to one another, all on a show that seemed most interested in egging them on. The most famous fight in The View’s history, between Rosie O’Donnell and Elisabeth Hasselbeck in 2007, culminated in a split-screen showing both conversation partners; for the past many months, every conversation has been in split-screen, allowing derision, in particular between conservative McCain and liberal comedian Joy Behar to bleed through the screen." D'Addario adds: "This much rang true — even critics of McCain, who early in her career tended to deflect counterarguments by relying on her youth and family name, can acknowledge that she managed to stick it out in an omni-directionally hostile environment. But it’s an open question as to what was accomplished, especially in the final year of her tenure. The View is not so very different from other programming that’s packaged as news — its purpose is to excite the pulse with invective. The only difference, perhaps, is that The View is honest about framing its debates as clashes rooted in something beyond policy disagreement....Elsewhere, the backbiting and caustic sarcasm exchanged between Behar and McCain has perhaps not been as newsworthy as their positions on the issues. But it also made those positions difficult to discern, as one first had to get through a level of snideness in the air that obscured everything else. Basic respect seemed to have broken down. Speaking directly to camera rather than to one another and an in-person audience, the co-hosts veered into a place that wasn’t even good TV. McCain, who’d made a burgeoning career out of striking a careful balance between speaking her mind and telling off her colleagues, seemed to have trouble finding the right note in this moment, and the rest of the View cohort had no interest in helping her find it."

ALSO:


Meghan McCain's time on The View is bursting with lowlights (https://jezebel.com/how-will-meghan-mccain-remind-us-who-her-dad-is-now-tha-1847209969): "Looking back on McCain’s time with the ladies of The View I have but a single fond memory of her in the four years that she has been bickering with Joy Behar," says Shannon Melero. "One time, she said something agreeable. That’s it. It was a beautiful, fleeting moment overshadowed by all the times McCain chose to be willfully racist and ignorant and called it being conservative. But perhaps it was not as beautiful as the time Whoopi Goldberg embodied the spirit of thousands of viewers and told her co-host plainly, 'Shut up.'"
Joy Behar and her fellow co-hosts offer kind words in response to McCain's announcement: "You were a formidable opponent" (https://decider.com/2021/07/01/the-view-fans-celebrate-meghan-mccain-exit/)
McCain's announcement was greeted by celebration from The View fans (https://people.com/tv/joy-behar-the-view-co-hosts-react-meghan-mccain-exit)
Who will replace McCain? (https://www.thewrap.com/the-internet-has-ideas-who-should-replace-meghan-mccain-on-the-view/)


Here are 7 conservative women who could replace Meghan McCain on The View, from Megyn Kelly to Kellyanne Conway to Candace Owens (https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/561195-7-conservative-women-who-could-replace-meghan-mccain-on-the)

The Hill's proposed McCain replacements also include CNN's S.E. Cupp, a guest co-host on The View in 2014, and bringing back previous co-hosts Jedediah Bila, Elisabeth Hasselbeck or Abby Huntsman.

Meghan McCain likely tainted The View forever: She made for entertaining TV, but not for healthy discourse (https://www.salon.com/2021/08/05/meghan-mccain-the-view-exit/)

"She'll be missed – and that's a problem," says Melanie McFarland of McCain's exit Friday after four years on the ABC daytime show. "To The View, McCain was more than a spout of parbaked twaddle delivered with tell-it-like-it-is confidence," says McFarland. "She was a voice of false equivalency and 'but what about'-ism, representing America's extreme right-wing Karens. Occasionally she would vanish when a guest with whom she didn't want to engage appeared. But she wasn't just a purveyor of half-truths and Fox News talking points. She offered the very important perspective of women who make everything all about them. Whether a given episode's Hot Topics concerned reproductive rights, identity politics, voting rights, cancel culture, protests against police brutality, anti-Asian violence, or anything related to the pandemic – especially as it pertains to who's to blame for stagnating vaccination rates (hint: it's Republicans, Meghan!) – McCain always found a way to redirect the road trip right back to her doorstep. Except, that is, on the topic of nepotism. For that, she had bright orange detour signs to redirect us." McFarland adds: "Four years' worth of her eyebrow-raising blurts made The View a central media attraction. But that wasn't entirely about her. Whoopi Goldberg's confused and horrified reactions at her opinions were GIF goldmines. Joy Behar's acerbic rebuttals and outright smackdowns and Sunny Hostin's educational reads gave life to late-night comedy monologues and slow news days. For people who live to drag dumb takes on social media, McCain and the conflict she created were reliable ways of bumping up in an era that's generally bummed us out. She was exhausting, but what she brought out in Behar, Goldberg and Hostin made for memorably entertaining TV. But entertaining TV isn't necessarily good for healthy discourse. Often its effects are the opposite, tilting what should be illuminating exchanges into street brawls. The View has lasted for 24 seasons and cycled nearly two dozen co-hosts through the New York City studios where it's been produced. The show will certainly outlast McCain. Remaining to be seen is whether the havoc she regularly wrought since joining in 2017 will permanently change its chemistry, much in the way some drugs can permanently alter brain function. In this scenario, the drug is frivolous anger. Anger is a natural human emotion – healthy even, in the right circumstances. A motivator, when applied purposefully. Angry gets s*** done. Frivolous anger functions differently, acting more like an opioid than a benign stimulant. The longer that it's intravenously pumped into our systems, the more difficult it is to quit. Anyone who survived the last five years knows this all too well."

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What made Meghan McCain good TV at the beginning eventually became a curse (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-reviews/meghan-mccain-the-view-1234993560/): "McCain’s increasingly vitriolic comments, self-absorption and constant claims of being misunderstood reached new peaks," says Lovia Gyarkye, adding: "When Barbara Walters started The View in 1997, she envisioned it as a space where women from different generations and with opposing views could come together and chat. Opinions were, and continue to be, the point of the program. McCain’s bratty antics initially benefited ABC: Even if you didn’t like what she said, it was easy to become addicted to the drama she created. But what made McCain good TV at the beginning eventually became a curse. Her behavior — immature, petulant and brimming with negativity — grew old. The show became less about the dynamic set of hosts and the interplay between them, and more about her. If McCain felt a topic beneath her, she made it known. If she felt attacked, she made it known. If she was even mildly annoyed, well, you guessed it: She made it known. Some of her cohosts, like Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines, became near-stoic in the face of McCain’s outbursts. They often responded with poker faces and pleasant smiles."

Meghan McCain Details "Purposeful Hostility" That Prompted her Exit from "The View": "The Environment is Toxic"
by Rebecca Iannucci
October 19, 2021


An allegedly hostile work environment, created in part by her on-air co-hosts, is what Meghan McCain says prompted her exit from "The View" earlier this year, as detailed in a new excerpt from McCain’s upcoming memoir.

In the passage from "Bad Republican", first obtained by our sister site Variety, McCain says she was the target of “toxic, direct and purposeful hostility” throughout her four years at the daytime series.

(TVLine has reached out to ABC for comment.)





As "The View‘s" resident conservative during President Trump’s administration, McCain felt as though “I had become an avatar for everything [her co-hosts] hated about the president,” prompting Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar and other "View" staffers to become “meaner and less forgiving” toward McCain as Trump’s presidency continued.

But McCain says she “could handle it and manage it” until she became a mother to daughter Liberty in 2020.





Shortly after returning to "The View" following her maternity leave — “as I was still… adjusting to my new schedule and life between breast-pumping and researching for my hot topics,” McCain remembers — she got into a heated on-air discussion with Behar regarding politics, prompting McCain to say, “Joy, you missed me so much when I was on maternity leave! You missed fighting with me!”

McCain recalls making the comment in an effort to “make light of things and to ease the tension” at the table. Behar’s response was, “I did not. I did not miss you. Zero.”

“Nothing anyone has ever said to me on camera since I have been giving interviews since I was 22 years old ever hit this hard,” McCain shares. “I felt like I’d been slapped… Now, I know I’m not always a perfect angel, but I would never speak to any woman that way who had just returned after giving birth. There are some things in life and some moments of time in life which are sacred.”





It was that incident with Behar — an “intensely heartbreaking experience” that McCain says prompted her to cry during "The View‘s" next commercial break, then experience a panic attack in private later — that ultimately prompted McCain to reevaluate her future on the show, particularly as her postpartum anxiety worsened.

“The View is billed as being honest and open. It’s billed as an arena for women to share and discuss their views on politics and the most important topics of the day — an arena historically occupied by men,” McCain continues.

“But the truth is that the environment of the show is toxic. Here I was, thinking that I had been through so much with these women… After giving birth, I didn’t feel like myself. I felt extremely vulnerable. Joy seemed to smell that vulnerability like a shark smells blood in the water, and she took after it. Why was this worth it to her? I will never know. But, so much for working moms looking out for each other.”





McCain maintains she’s “not mad about what happened to me” at "The View", but admits “there are some things about the show that feel stuck in 1997 when The View first went on air. In this era of dismantling toxic work environments and refusing to accept the poor treatment of employees, how is The View still immune?”

The former host also implores ABC News to offer paid family leave to all employees, an issue about which she’s become passionate. “Conservatives are supposed to be so pro-family, but too often their policies stop short of protecting and supporting women,” she says. “I feel like we are collectively failing new moms and women in general in this country.”



"Bad Republican" releases Thursday, Oct. 21, in audiobook format only.

https://tvline.com/2021/10/19/meghan-mccain-quits-the-view-exit-explained-toxic-workplace/

Here are 7 conservative women who could replace Meghan McCain on The View, from Megyn Kelly to Kellyanne Conway to Candace Owens (https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/561195-7-conservative-women-who-could-replace-meghan-mccain-on-the)

Any of these would be great, for one who watches this. Any one of them could stand up to in-the-gutter Behar.