Meghan McCain Explains Why She’s the Best Possible Conservative for ‘The View’

The studio is shuttered. The hosts are broadcasting from home. But not even a global pandemic can stop the rumor mill that surrounds The View. 

Last week, Variety reported that Joy Behar, who has been with the daytime talk show from the beginning, would be leaving the show when her contract expires in 2022. In a new excerpt from the paperback edition of reporter Ramin Setoodeh’s book Ladies Who Punch: The Explosive Inside Story of ‘The View’, Behar said, “I don’t see myself staying for more [time]. That’s it! I could be wrong. If I’m as fabulous in [2022] as I am now, I’ll think about. But the chances of that happening…”

The next day on the show, Behar threw cold water on the “rumors”—without mentioning the 2022 date. “They’re always talking about my leaving the show,” she said. “I’m not leaving the show. Let me say that rumors of my retirement have been greatly exaggerated.”

But that wasn’t all the co-hosts have to say in the updated version of the book, which will be available for purchase starting this Tuesday. In excerpts shared exclusively with The Daily Beast, both Behar and her frequent sparring partner Meghan McCain opened up about what it has been like to cover President Trump on a daily basis. 

“With this liar-in-chief, there’s material constantly with him,” Behar tells Setoodeh. “It was the same with Clinton, except with Clinton it was just a blow job. Trump is screwing the whole country. It’s not so funny, because you can see by his daily mishaps that he’s incompetent. He’s amoral. He has no clue what he’s doing. He’s greedy. He’s jealous. He’s insecure. And those are his good points.”

Still, Behar insists that as its core, The View is an “informative show” and the viewers “have a confidence we are telling them something that’s the unvarnished truth.” 

“We have no axe to grind,” she adds. “Even though I’m 100 percent against Trump, if he were to do something right, which I strongly doubt, I would say it. I haven’t seen it yet.”

“I did not know how bad he would be,” Behar says of Trump. “I just thought he was a big old egomaniac, who was in love with his daughter.”

McCain, meanwhile, admits that Trump has “helped ratings for all of news,” including The View.  

“But I think the show got the panel right,” she says. “I think if you had someone who wasn’t a hard-lined conservative and was more scared to go against the rest of the panel sitting in my chair, I don’t think it would be as effective. I’m trying to tell the truth of a perspective that is wildly underrepresented in the swath of all media except for Fox News.”

Though both women are quarantining at home for the time being, they have no plans to leave the show anytime soon.