Meghan McCain Shades Joy Behar's 'Intellectually Dishonest' Anti-Republican Speech

In what's likely to be one of their final tiffs on The View, Meghan McCain shaded Joy Behar during a tense conversation about rising COVID-19 rates among unvaccinated Americans. After Behar insisted that Republicans are bringing us back to "the Dark Ages" with their "political maneuvering against science," McCain called out her co-host's "intellectually dishonest" argument, as "it's not just Republicans" who are vaccine-averse. "There's lots of demographics that are vaccine hesitant for a lot of reasons," said the conservative co-host.

This morning, Behar wasted no time poking the sleeping bear when she said that Tennessee's recent decision to halt all teen outreach on vaccinations is "all political," rather than grounded in science. "I know that Republicans are nostalgic for the '50s — I didn't realize it was the 1850s," she said. "We are entering a new version of the Dark Ages thanks to the new Republican Party."

"They don't want our kids to get vaccinated. By the way, they're all getting vaccinated. Everyone on Fox has been vaccinated, you can be sure. Donald Trump has," added Behar, as she dinged the GOP for "put[ting] out false information about the vaccine," curbing voting rights, and being "afraid of history" and the realities of slavery. "The party is driving our country into the Dark Ages, right back to some kind of neanderthal period. And I'm worried about it. Very, very worried."

McCain didn't take the bait, but she did issue a pointed response to the liberal co-host. The conservative firebrand insisted that the case of former E! host Catt Sadler, who contracted a bad case of COVID-19 despite being vaccinated, is "very scary," as Sadler is "obviously very sick" with the virus. "So, there's questions about the efficacy of the vaccine, on top of everything right now," she said.

POLITICS ENDANGERING LIVES OF KIDS, TEENS? After firing their top vaccine official for giving guidance on the COVID-19 vaccine for teens, Tennessee just doubled down by halting all teen outreach on vaccinations — the co-hosts weigh in. https://t.co/ed8IU8bRwj pic.twitter.com/sjLvwhe4Za

— The View (@TheView) July 15, 2021

"I think everyone should get vaccinated. We've been all saying this — as different as our political opinions are, everyone on the show believes in the vaccine and believes that we should get vaccinated," continued McCain. "[But] I don't know what the answers to these problems are because it's not just Republicans. When you get into statistics about demographics who are not being vaccinated, it's actually just really intellectually dishonest to put all the blame on the shoulders of Republicans."

As such, explained McCain, "we need to be reaching out to people in a lot of different ways" about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. "I'm going to say it again: I don't think the White House is doing a good job reaching out to Republicans. I don't," she said. "I've offered my help. They haven't accepted it. They don't care. They need to find some Republican that's good enough to help them with outreach."

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Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.