Meghan McCain recalls 'toxic' environment on 'The View' while taking aim at Kari Lake, MAGA

Despite hailing from a famous Republican family, Meghan McCain has long had trouble finding her political niche, something she recently described in the context of her volatile tenure on – and eventual exit from – ABC's The View, as Salon reports.

While she may have felt like a fish out of water among the rest of the liberal panelists, McCain has also gone to comparable lengths to distance herself from the conservative wing of the party with which she claims to align.

McCain's tumultuous time on the daytime talk show, which lasted from 2017 to 2021, often made headlines for the tension that clearly existed between her and the show's co-hosts.

The daughter of the late Sen. John McCain this week shared some of those experiences during an appearance on the Ruthless Podcast with hosts Josh Holmes John Ashbrook, and Michael Duncan, for which she was also joined by commentator Mary Katharine Ham.

As the broadcast noted, McCain is the only View alumna to have departed the show on her own accord rather than as the result of a firing, and she recounts in her recent book Bad Republican that her years on the panel were marked by unhappiness caused by its prevailing tone, which she described as “toxic.”

McCain went on to recount that she was the show's designated “enemy,” a role that she said even extended to staffers such as backstage hair and makeup personnel.

According to McCain, everyone associated with the program was characterized by the fact that they “hate conservatives and men,” whether on air or off, and that she was “punished” for hoping to represent conservativism in a relatable way.

Disputing claims that she was a source of behind-the-scenes discord, McCain noted, “I am told that it's all utopian, beautiful, they all get along and there's never any problems. I was the drama, I was the problem, the whole thing.”

“Maybe that's true. I don't know. But for me, I don't want to be friends with people I don't respect. It's too hard,” she added, later lamenting that the show essentially refused to feature “any real conservatives” and that strong conservative woman are perceived “like traitors to women.”

Though she makes her disdain for liberals quite clear, McCain seems equally ill at ease with the conservative wing of the GOP, as evidenced by her recent back-and-forth with Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake.

As Axios reports, Lake has made overtures in an effort to mend fences with the McCain family after suggesting that their faction of the Republican Party was not welcome at an event she held roughly two years ago.

When asked about the remark in question, Lake replied, “It was said in jest. And I think that if John McCain, who had a great sense of humor, would have heard it, he would have laughed.”

Meghan McCain, however, is not laughing, and she replied to Lake's effort by writing on X, “NO PEACE, B***H!” and observing, “Guess she realized she can't become a Senator without us.”

The late senator's daughter is also maintaining her longstanding grudge against Donald Trump and his voter base, recently referring to the former president's supporters as “the MAGA Cheeto Jesus minions and cementing her perplexing status as someone who just cannot seem to figure out where she belongs.