The ladies of The View do NOT shy away from the “Hot Topics” of the day, so on Monday’s show, they took up the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue over the weekend that left 11 people dead. But at the first whiff of “guns” being part of the problem, co-host Meghan McCain was back on her game.
After Abby Huntsman offered up some platitudes about love and tolerance, Joy Behar responded: “Love is good, but you need laws.” At the edge of your screen, you can start to see McCain furrow her brows; she knows where THIS is going.
“I didn’t think we were going to have a conversation about AR-15s, but I’m happy to,” McCain, clearly annoyed, broke in after her co-host read a list of mass shootings where an AR-15 was the murderous tool of choice. “I wanted to have a conversation about tolerance.”
She then dove into the good stuff: quoting Bill Clinton and saying, once again, “People on the left also have to take some culpability.”
“Keith Ellison, who’s vice chair of the DNC, met with Louis Farrakhan as recently as 2016,” she continued—mark your bingo cards if you have “Farrakhan!”—before going on to quote some of the controversial Nation of Islam leader’s more infamous anti-Semitic quotes.
“So, all the way around, we should hold everyone accountable for what’s going on, not just only on the right,” McCain concluded. Cool, I haven’t heard this one from a conservative pundit in nearly 10 minutes! Having President Trump immediately blame the shooting on the synagogue community for not stationing an armed guard at its entrance is the same as [muttering under breath] something something Farrakhan, so we should all step up and take our share of the responsibility.
McCain went on to say that “as a gun owner and NRA member, we’re demonized to such a degree” before castigating Behar for apparently not looking at her during the nonsense tangent. Later on in the show, during a discussion of the Twitter alternative Gab—a favorite hangout for neo-Nazis and the far-right, including the Pittsburgh shooting suspect—Behar made clear that her patience with McCain was wearing thin. When McCain criticized her from “jumping” from Gab to Trump, she snapped, “I’ll jump wherever I damn please.” Yas queen, I say!!!
It’s worth emphasizing, once again, how incredibly lazy conservatives’ lines of defense are getting as the attacks on those Trump frequently demonizes continue. “Both sides” is a bullshit argument made in bad faith, one that’s an irresistible tar pit in moments like these. Don’t fall for it.