Meghan McCain is not a fan of President Donald Trump — just ask her — but she’s “grateful” to him for one thing.
“If Trump wasn’t president, I don’t think I would be successful here,” the
“For that reason, I guess I’m grateful that Trump is president,” McCain continued. “It’s just made my job a little easier because I know why it happened.”
Still, McCain, 34, told author Ramin Setoodeh (her friend and former editor) that she didn’t think the president — an unusually polarizing politician — was the reason
“That I don’t concede to. Everyone is like, ‘Oh, you’re popular because Trump.’ I think everyone is more interested in politics,” she said. “Young women are different now than when I was younger. Everyone is involved, civically engaged, and informed. I think that’s also why the show is doing so well.”
“I think the reason I worked and other Republicans didn’t is because I’m the first real Republican that they hired,” McCain said.
And she knows how that sounds: “Yes, I think I’m more of a Republican than Elisabeth is.”
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Speaking with Setoodeh, she could hardly name other conservative co-hosts before her: “Nicolle Wallace changed parties. Candace Cameron was a social conservative. I don’t remember the other people who were on here.”
Since joining
“He [Trump] knows it and I know it and all of you know it — he will never be a great man,” Meghan said on the show last month. “My father was his kryptonite in life, he’s his kryptonite in death.”
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Describing her own politics, Meghan has described herself as “a conservative first and foremost.”
“I’m a small government, America-first conservative,” she said on
In
“I was born in this environment. I don’t want to be a Democrat,” she said. “I think there were a lot of people they hired that are in the mushy middle, or they are Republicans who are ashamed of being Republicans — or they are intimidated.”
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Meghan told Setoodeh she was somewhat reluctant to take
And while she said she “thought I was getting fired for a long time,” she’s been happy to be proven wrong.
“I hope it’s in my obituary that I was the first Republican since Elisabeth Hasselbeck to survive more than one season on
That includes her noted verbal altercations with fellow panelist Joy Behar.
“I love sparring with her,” Meghan said in