The View‘s Meghan McCain spent a considerable chunk of Wednesday’s show rambling about her family’s “legacy” as fellow co-hosts weighed in on the bombshell multimillion-dollar college admissions scam.
Federal officials on Tuesday announced charges against 40 people, including actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, for allegedly paying an estimated $25 million in bribes to buy their children’s way into the nation’s most elite universities. Some parents went so far as to fake disabilities or have someone cheat on their kids’ entrance exams.
Fellow hosts Sunny Hostin, Joy Behar, Abby Huntsman and Ana Navarro-Cardenas expressed outrage over the scandal, noting how rich whites looking to “game the system” only makes it harder on minority and poor white students. Still, McCain found a way to personally insert herself into the discussion.
“For me specifically, not everything is about my family, I know,” she began, before adding: “I read my tweets, I know what you’re saying.”
The Fox New alum proceeded to rail against Mossimo Giannulli, the husband of “Full House” actor Lori “Aunt Becky” Loughlin, for allegedly talking crap about a public university in her home state of Arizona.
“Arizona State is where the McCain Institute for International Leadership is partnershipped with ASU, where they find students, identify, develop and train a global network of character-driven leaders that I have the luxury to be a part of that institute, and it was chosen because ASU is a premiere educational system, as well,” McCain said.
She argued that while the metropolitan research school might not have been good enough for some Hollywood elites, Arizona State has incredible leadership that’s been doing “incredible things for a long time.” Her gushing didn’t end there, however.
“I’m very proud to have my family’s name attached to ASU,” McCain continued. “It is an incredible, incredible, incredible college, and Aunt Becky’s husband, whoever the hell you are — I had no idea who you were until yesterday — sorry, your kid probably wouldn’t have been good enough to get in.”
Behar, 76, tried switching to the topic to legacy admissions, in which students are given preference if their parents are alumni of a particular institution, and noted the practice is inherently racist in that it was designed to keep minorities out.
McCain immediately pushed back.
“The only thing I will say,” she began, “when it comes to military academies, my family goes back generations at the Naval Academy, and that’s service to your country so i would push back on that part of it because my grandfather, great-grandfather, my brothers, they all served their country.”
Behar argued it was unfair that descendants of alumni should be granted admission if they don’t meet the qualifications, an assertion to which McCain clearly took offense.
“They did have the grades,” she shot back. “My brother did, but I don’t think there’s anything to be ashamed of the fact my family’s legacy is at the Naval Academy — my father’s buried there.”
Behar replied: “I’m not talking about your family! I’m talking about the policy of where legacy admissions came from. It was to keep non-white people and Jews, probably, out of colleges.”
McCain was incessant, adding, “You said legacy. I’m very proud of my family’s legacy at the Naval Academy.”
Watch more in the video below.
https://youtu.be/M6zQEeGZFKQ?t=260