Meghan McCain To Leave ‘The View’ After Four Years

Meghan McCain, the daughter of late Sen. John McCain, announced at the beginning of Thursday’s show that this would be her final season on The View. McCain first joined the talk show in 2017 and has since been the main conservative personality, often sparring with her cohosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Ana Navarro, Sara Haines and Sunny Hostin.

She started her statement on Thursday with, “I’m going to rip the Band-Aid off. I’m here to tell all of you, my wonderful co-hosts and the viewers at home, that this is going to be my last season here at The View.”

McCain continued by saying that she would finish out the season, which is until the end of July. She talked about how difficult of a decision it was to leave the show. “It took a lot of thought and counsel and prayer, and talking to my family and close friends,” she said.

McCain explained that she made the choice as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. She was pregnant while New York City was the epicenter of the pandemic and her doctor advised that she leave the city. The host said that she and her husband temporarily moved to Washington D.C., a place that they had both grown up. There, McCain found herself surrounded by friends and family, a setting she hopes to raise her daughter in, so she has decided to move to the D.C. area for the time being.

She went on praising the show and thanking her cohosts, calling The View, “one of the greatest, most exhilarating wonderful privileges of my entire life.”

McCain told her cohosts, “It is a privilege to work alongside such strong, brilliant, intelligent, incredible broadcasters like the four of you. You are the most talented women on all of television hands-down and it has been so incredible to be able to do this with you.”

McCain recalled that her father had been the one to push her to do the show.  “Before I came to the show, I didn’t want to join the show,” she said. “He said I could never give up an opportunity to work on such an iconic show and to work with Whoopi Goldberg and he was right.”

“And since we’ve been here the last four years together,” she continued, “We have won an Emmy, we’ve gone to No. 1, we’ve been parodied on Saturday Night Live, we were on the cover of my personal favorite, The New York Times Magazine, as the most important political show in America, we have all interviewed every presidential candidate. This is the show in America. It is not easy to leave, but I feel like this is the right decision for me at this moment.”

At the end of her speech, McCain joked that she would still be willing to argue about politics before the end of the season. “I’ll still be here another month, so if you guys want to fight a little bit more, you have a few more weeks,” she said with a smile.