ABC’s The View returned for its 22nd season Tuesday morning without co-host Meghan McCain, who was still at home with her family after delivering a powerful eulogy for her father, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), over the weekend.
But the show did welcome the newest member of its panel, former Fox & Friends Weekend host Abby Huntsman, who described her fellow daughter of a prominent political figure as being “like a sister” to her.
After praising her friend and new co-worker’s speech, Huntsman revealed that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were not as welcome at McCain’s funeral as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who invited them, has made it seem.
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“I spoke to Meghan about this,” she said, “And the family—look, I’m sure they had final approval of everything, if they had it their way—as was evident in the tone of the funeral—they probably would rather not have had anyone from the Trump family present.” And yet Trump’s eldest daughter and her husband, both White House officials, “still showed up.”
“And I’ve got to say, there were a number of moments that were awkward, I’m sure for them, to be sitting there,” Huntsman added. Asked if Graham “cleared” the invite with Cindy McCain, Huntsman would not say one way or the other.
Before his death, John McCain made it clear that President Donald Trump would not be welcome at his funeral. As Huntsman pointed out, several of the eulogies drew sharp contrasts between the two men, without evoking Trump’s name explicitly.
Most notably, Meghan McCain said that her father’s death represented the loss of “American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave so willingly, nor the opportunistic appropriation of those who lived lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served,” adding, “The America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great.”
“They should not have been there,” The View’s Sunny Hostin added later in the segment, saying she believes it was in “poor taste” for them to show up when the family had been “very clear” who they wanted there. “Who crashes a funeral?” she asked. “You just don’t do that. I thought it was shameful that they were there, I really do. I stand by that.”
Earlier in the show, Hostin lauded Meghan McCain for standing up to Trump in her speech, saying, “It was just so moving to see our friend and our colleague rise to that occasion. For those of you who didn’t see it, she said John McCain told her, ‘Show people how tough you are.’ And my god, she showed everyone how tough she is.”
