Last week, Daily Beast columnist Meghan McCain sat down for an interview with potential 2012 GOP presidential nomination contender Donald Trump. The interview itself received criticism from many circles, and drew notice from both the right and the left.
On “Imus in the Morning” Thursday on the Fox Business Network, the daughter of the 2008 Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, responded to her detractors and had no qualms with such criticism.
“You know I’m not a journalist, I’m a columnist and a commentator and working on being a media personality and I’m not mean, if you need a hard hitting interview I will be the first to say don’t go to me, I’m too nice,” McCain said. “I don’t like asking people uncomfortable questions because I know what it feels like on the other end. He’s very hard to interview. I was trying to ask him real questions and he’s like, ‘I love you, I love your family.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, thank you,’ and I’m such a like dork. I go, ‘That’s nice’ and people are jerks. So I don’t know and I did it and got so much pickup and got a lot of crap from people. But I took him seriously and I think that’s why it got so much attention, because I was like, ‘Are you really going to Iowa and is your family ready?’ I’m sorry you thought it was too ‘kissy.’”
Imus asked McCain if she took Trump as a potential 2012 candidate seriously. McCain revealed she did and Trump said he was serious and such a run “is going to happen.”
“I do,” she said. “He’s assured me this isn’t a joke. Maybe he’s– maybe I’m being naive, but he assured me he’s actually going to run, and you know this is going to happen. I’m just fascinated he’s getting so much attention and so many other candidates are getting almost none. I mean, the average personal doesn’t know who Tim Pawlenty is.”
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As for the lackluster field to date for the Republican Party, McCain blamed the media for scaring away good candidates.
“I think the media has gotten completely out of control especially when it comes to Republicans and I worry about women in general,” she said. “I speak at a lot of college campuses. Young women don’t want to be involved in politics because they don’t want to be harassed for their appearance and lifestyle and I don’t know – I think that media does a lot of damage.
As for how Trump would do with women, McCain said based on her interaction with other women, there’s an interest and fascination, but as for how he would deal with his personal life baggage is unclear.
“Well, some of my girlfriends are just like interested in the idea of him,” she said. “And people are fascinated by him. I think his biggest problem is honestly — he’s been married three times and you know. His current wife, can you really see her as first lady and I asked her and he’s like, she’ll make a wonderful — I think I asked her that, part of the interview, I don’t know.”
