The View led off its Thursday morning broadcast with a lot of anger and emotion towards President Donald Trump’s decision to step aside in Syria and allow Turkey to attack America’s Kurdish allies. And conservative co-host Meghan McCain was the loudest in her condemnation of the administration.
With the panel discussing the rising casualties of Kurdish forces and civilians following the Turkish invasion, McCain brought up reports that American military officers in the area are ashamed of their country right now for abandoning their allies.
Saying she was happy “there’s outrage on both sides” over this issue, McCain went on to note that Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)—one of the few supporters in Congress of Trump’s decision—will be on The View on Friday but she will be off for “personal reasons.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“I want you to ask him,” she addressed her colleagues. “There is blood on anyone’s hands, starting with him and President Trump’s, letting this happen because there are people being slaughtered after standing with our troops in the Middle East for an extremely long time fighting against terror cells!”
McCain continued: “And we are not entering into a foreign war. These are proxies supporting us. The whole point of having proxies is so we don’t get into another war! And I’m sorry, have we not learned the lessons of 9/11?! I don’t understand it. I’m sorry I’m upset, but this has been going on for weeks. These people are being killed and slaughtered!”
Co-host Sunny Hostin eventually jumped in, asserting that the president’s decision to abandon the Kurds could be a factor in why there is a recent increase in Republican voters favoring impeachment against him, pointing to the latest polls that show a strong majority of Americans support at least an impeachment inquiry.
McCain, however, said she didn’t “want to talk about impeachment” while shaking her head as Hostin spoke. This caused the table to go back and forth for a moment as McCain wanted to “have a conversation” about Turkey, prompting host Whoopi Goldberg to step in and tell the former Fox News personality that she needed to let liberal co-host Joy Behar get a word in first.
Behar, meanwhile, took issue with Republicans standing up to Trump now on the Kurds when they were fine with his border policies that resulted in children being locked up and taken away from their parents.
“That is who he is, and what makes you think he cares about innocent Kurds being slaughtered when he doesn’t care about innocent children being taken away from their parents?” Behar exclaimed. “This is the same man. So don’t tell me that the Republican Party is now standing up to him. They should have done it before, and we wouldn’t be in this position.”
McCain would go on to accuse Behar of “blame-shifting,” saying the situation at the border is bad but this situation in Syria is “opening up a Pandora’s Box” that our “generation’s children will be dealing with” from now on.
After Behar said she was just saying there was blame for both and that this should have been foreseen, McCain sighed in frustration and eventually replied: “I think everything is bad. I did not support what happened on the border, as you’re aware. I don’t care about impeachment right now. I think what is happening is so much gravely worse.”
Hostin, meanwhile, responded that she should care about impeachment “because if he can do this, he can do a lot worse.”
