Wednesday on ABC’s “The View,” co-host Meghan McCain got visibly upset and raised her voice in anger while debating the retirement of House Speaker Paul Ryan.
After the studio audience loudly cheered the news, McCain said, “Cheering kind of surprises me a little bit because Paul Ryan is a politician of an era gone by. He was one of the most powerful congressmen between 2009 and 2016, before Trumpism sort of completely took over. He is a really classic conservative, and this party is the party of Trump now. People like me who are old-school conservatives, we’re really on our way out. and it makes me really sad. My husband, I was texting him about it, and he said, ‘He committed the worst sin — he was serious, polite and nice. That’s not what people want right now.’ He just gave a press conference saying he wants to spend more time with his family. I believe him to a point. I also believe he doesn’t want to deal with this anymore, and he doesn’t want to go home to his constituents in Wisconsin and try and explain some of the tweeting and the more incendiary things that President Trump is doing right now.”
She continued, “We’re having Trey Gowdy on tomorrow — this is the bloodletting of classic conservative. The people that are cheering. Do you know what comes in its place? Trumpism, and I assume if you don’t like Paul Ryan, you probably hate Trump more. So maybe don’t cheer when people like Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney and Trey Gowdy, and people like Ben Sasse, who are, thank God, still in office, or maybe on their way out, because I assure you — what’s in its place you will like a lot less.”
Co-host Joy Behar said, “Paul Ryan has been an enabler of Trump.”
McCain said, “That is factually inaccurate. No. He has gone up against Trump. It’s part of the reason why he is stepping down right now. That’s factually inaccurate — he has gone up against Trump time and time again. He has been crucified by hardcore conservative media as a result of it.”
Behar said, “He got his tax cut through. He got Neil Gorsuch. He got everything he wanted.”
McCain said, “What do you want if Paul Ryan isn’t good enough?”
Behar shot back, “I want them all out.”
McCain shouted, “But that’s not logical. We shouldn’t want that. We live in a democracy, we should want two healthy parties. They are against each other, but if Paul Ryan is the greatest sin, this is how we got Trump because if Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney and people like this are the worst kind of politicians, then you deserve Trump. He was a truly decent man who was trying to fight for democracy and conservative ideals. Now, what is going to be left I have no idea.”
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