Meghan McCain, Joy Behar square off in heated antisemitism exchange on 'The View'

In what seems par for the course in daytime TV these days, conservative panelist Meghan McCain was extra spicy Monday on "The View," yelling at moderator Whoopi Goldberg and clashing with co-host Joy Behar over antisemitism that sprang from a conversation about Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The results were stress-inducing.

Goldberg first solicited McCain's opinion on why Greene's "own party isn't dragging her in [and] saying, listen, you can't do this" after the freshman legislator from Georgia recently likened House mask mandates to the mandate for Jews to wear yellow stars during the Holocaust, when an estimated 6 million Jews were slain by the Nazis.

"I can't stand Marjorie Taylor Greene. I think she's a crazy person. I've said that over and over again," McCain told Goldberg during the Hot Topics segment on "The View" before mentioning that the representative had been stripped of her committee assignments and had "absolutely no legislative power."

McCain then took the conversation off on a tangent by noting that, in contrast, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who has made antisemitic statements, still holds her position on the foreign-relations committee and is "able to dictate our foreign policy in the United States of America."

The daughter of late GOP Sen. John McCain then went into a litany of antisemitic acts rounded up from around world in recent days, including last week's suspected anti-Jewish attack at an L.A.-area sushi restaurant.

She questioned why the show was even talking about Greene during Hot Topics.

"I would love Democrats to put that same type of energy onto what's happening on the left because, quite frankly, this is is how people get red-pilled," McCain said. "They're red-pilled when they see the blatant bias in the media. It's because the media doesn't want the Squad to look bad. They just want Marjorie Taylor to look bad."

At that point, Goldberg let out a huge audible sigh and then talked over McCain, sparking the latter to protest what she saw as being cut off.

"I'm cutting you off because we have to go, Meghan!" Goldberg hollered before the ABC show cut to commercial.

After the break, Goldberg invited McCain to wrap up her point, which she did, saying that antisemitism when manifested by the right was easier to see than when it appeared on the left. McCain hammered on the power issue, noting that Omar still has legislative power.

Goldberg then threw the discussion over to co-host Sunny Hostin, but McCain jumped back in. Her further statements about hate crimes prompted Joy Behar, who had previously praised Democrats for their actions against antisemitism, to tell McCain that she resented McCain's comments.

"Well, I resent a lot of things, so we're even," McCain sniped.

"I’ve been talking about antisemitism on this show for 25 frikkin' years,” Behar fired back. “Don’t tell me what I’m supposed to be saying, Meghan, OK? You do your thing, we do ours.”

"I'm not telling you what you're supposed to say," McCain said. "I'm well aware we do separate things on this show, Joy, OK? And I know you’ve been here 25 years. I’ve been here four."

“That’s right. That's right,” Behar chided. “You should have some respect for that, once in a blue moon.”

Goldberg then jumped back into the fray and calmed things down to end the segment.

"Nobody wants anybody arguing. ... We would like everybody to stop comparing stuff or conflating stuff or saying stupid stuff, whether you're on the left or right or in the center,” she said before calling on everyone to bring the conversation back to reality.

"We like to focus people's ideas on making a better world," Goldberg said.

For the record:
2:47 PM, May. 24, 2021: A previous version of this story stated that Rep. Ilhan Omar represents Michigan. She represents a district in Minnesota.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.