Hours after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) backed President Donald Trump’s recent racist attacks on Democratic congresswomen of color, The View’s Meghan McCain lamented that the man she once saw as an “uncle” and close family friend was no longer the person she knew while growing up.
During his Monday morning appearance on Fox & Friends, the South Carolina senator called on Trump to “aim higher” when criticizing the group of progressive lawmakers known as The Squad, calling the group a “bunch of communists” and anti-Semites who hate America. Trump, obviously impressed with Graham’s on-air remarks, quickly quoted the Republican lawmaker on Twitter.
After the hosts of The View blasted the president’s comments in general, McCain—the lone conservative on the panel—noted that her sister was born in Bangladesh while pointing out that Trump’s remarks are “deeply xenophobic and racist on a lot of different levels.” She then took issue with Graham, who had personally seen the racism her sister had been subjected to over the years.
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“I remember seeing you there when it happened,” she said, addressing Graham through the screen. “Seeing you on Fox & Friends was particularly, particularly hurtful.”
McCain went on to state that she has also gotten a lot of heat for taking on The Squad—a group including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley—but that the criticism of them needs to be strictly about politics. (Though McCain hasn’t always stuck to that rule.)
“The problem is you’re making this about race,” she exclaimed. “You’re making this about racism. You’re making this about what’s truly American, and it’s all these old racist dog whistles that have plagued this country for so long, and for me as the conservative representative on this show, I was so upset coming back yesterday.”
Later on, they aired a clip of Graham in 2015 calling Trump a “race-baiting xenophobic, religious bigot” who doesn’t represent the Republican Party nor the “values that the men and women who wear the uniform are fighting for.”
McCain reacted by noting that Khizr Khan’s son died in uniform and wasn’t born in this country before taking one more shot at Graham.
“I can’t do this right now, and whatever is happening to Lindsey, this is not the person I used to know,” she said.
