Meghan Mccain Is Having A Weird Year

Twitter fame, spats on The View, loving a Democratic presidential candidate: A peek into the mind of America’s most famous conservative woman.

- Carrie Battan

One afternoon in May, Meghan McCain arrives for lunch at a midtown Manhattan restaurant and states the obvious. “I feel like I’m controversial,” she says. Today the conservative cohost of The View, and the daughter of late senator John McCain, has swapped out her customary whimsical dresses and flashy pantsuits for a demure black sweater and slacks, and has the beleaguered disposition of someone who’s searched her name on social media one too many times. Each week, a fresh wave of drama tries to knock McCain over: Occasionally, a spat with one of her more left-leaning cohosts will go viral. (“You don’t need to look at me that way,” McCain recently snapped at her cohost Sunny Hostin.) Other weeks, there will be an uproar over something she’s said in a heated segment about immigration or abortion. When there’s nothing serious to latch onto, there might simply be a surge of blind frustration aimed at the good old-fashioned nepotism that helped boost McCain to her current perch, or a chorus of cackles about something she’s chosen to wear.

“The audience boos me,” McCain says. “It’s a very liberal audience in the studio, and they’re very vocal. People are always looking to turn you into something.”