Regular viewers of daytime gabfest The View are accustomed to seeing co-hosts and ideological opposites Joy Behar and Meghan McCain derail the show almost daily as they personally tear into each other. That’s why Monday’s opening segment came as a shock, as viewers were treated to the pair fist-bumping and declaring their full agreement with each other.
Covering Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s assertion that he doesn’t want to get into a “mud-wrestling match” with President Trump while also labeling the president a “clown,” the panel quickly found itself divided on whether Biden should get dirty with the insult-tossing former reality-TV host-turned-president.
Co-host Abby Huntsman worried what it “says about us” if the former veep feels like he needs to “get in the mud with Trump, adding that she hopes he doesn’t as his “campaign has been about sewing this country back together.”
As fellow host Whoopi Goldberg called Biden a “scrapper” who won’t “back up,” McCain—who has thrown her full support behind the ex-veep, a family friend of hers—jumped into the fray to tout Biden’s willingness to punch back.
“He will go Wilmington, Delaware on his ass so quick,” she exclaimed about the longtime Delaware senator. “I’m ready for a fight. I’m ready for somebody to counter-punch in a way that will be effective.”
“Me too!” Behar excitedly added as the crowd roared in approval.
McCain went on to say Biden would keep it “classy because Joe is a classy guy” but that she looks “forward to the fight all day every day” and that “it’s going to be incredible.”
Behar, meanwhile, noted that she likes it when candidates return fire with fire.
“His base, Trump’s base, likes it when he makes up these names,” she said. “Crooked Hillary... They go to those MAGA rallies and they love them. Joe Biden’s base, I’m one of them. I like it too. On that side, go right back at him I’m a street fighter. I’m from Brooklyn. Go right at him!”
As the audience erupted in applause, McCain reached across the table and gave her frequent foe a fist-bump.
“I’m a fighter too!” McCain shouted.
Co-host Sunny Hostin, however, disagreed with the duo, saying that she was also from Brooklyn and that Biden could stay classy, debate on policy, and not “get in the mud.”
“Sometimes you do!” McCain replied as the table then got into a full debate on how Biden should deal with Trump.
Eventually, Behar said that they are dealing “with the most shameless person that has ever been in that office,” prompting McCain to express shock that they are in “total agreement.”
“You gotta play dirty to get dirty,” the former Fox News personality exclaimed. “It is a dirty game! Politics is not the place you go when you want to feel soft and warm. Especially in the Trump administration.”
