Meghan McCain questioned President Trump’s decision to allow veteran journalist Bob Woodward unprecedented access in a series of interviews that are now being used to attack his response to the coronavirus pandemic.
During Thursday’s episode of The View on ABC, McCain likened Woodward to a “shark” and said Trump should’ve been more aware that the Watergate sleuth was looking for an “angle” to spin against the president as the two men spoke across 18 interviews.
“I cannot tell you the levels of insanity and stupidity you have to be in politics to give 18 hours to any journalist on the record, period,” McCain said. “If Bob Woodward said, ‘Hey Meghan, what did you have for breakfast,’ I’d say, ‘Off the record Bob, no comment,” and then, I would call my war room, and I’d call my spin room and say: ‘What does he want? What’s going on? And what kind of angle does he have?'”
“Because as Republicans, this is Almost Famous all the time. They’re the enemy, and they’re here to make you look bad. So, the idea that you’re going to let, literally a shark, come into the White House, what do you think is going to happen?”
Co-host Joy Behar interrupted to defend Woodward, saying he was not “the enemy,” but McCain quickly shot back: “For a Republican, the media is.”
In audio recorded for Woodward’s upcoming book, Rage, the veteran Watergate reporter reveals that Trump was more concerned about the seriousness of the disease in private than what he let on during campaign rallies earlier this year.
Later in the show, McCain downplayed the relevance of the interviews and pointed out that Democratic politicians had similarly struggled to respond appropriately to the disease as it engulfed the world in early March.
“Do you want to know why the American public distrusts D.C. in general?” McCain asked. “It looks like we have been lied to this entire time, and there are people in the media that let it happen.”
