Meghan McCain lashed out Friday at independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, saying that he used Russia as a “cop-out” to avoid taking responsibility for his own misogynistic followers.
McCain, responding to the recent reports the Russia intended to once again interfere in the 2020 American election, begged everyone to treat Russia as a serious threat rather than simply an excuse for bad behavior that could be attributed elsewhere.
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McCain began by conceding that she has been concerned about President Donald Trump’s relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, mentioning the Helsinki meeting in particular, but noting that she was more concerned by Sanders capitalizing on Russian election meddling to excuse his own followers’ behavior. (RELATED: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Blames ‘Internet Culture’ For Violent, Sexist Attacks From ‘Bernie Bros’)
“I think where I get uncomfortable is now we have Bernie Sanders saying that it’s Russian bots that are responsible for his Bernie Bros and Twitter actually came out and said it’s not, that you have a Bernie Bro problem online and they’re real people and not Bernie bots that are sent by Russia,” McCain explained. “I would implore all people to take, when you’re using Russia politically in one way or another, to take it seriously and not just using to quite frankly have a cop-out for why you have a bunch of misogynistic followers on Twitter.”
Guest cohost Ana Navarro jumped in to defend Sanders, arguing that he might not be completely off in his assessment. “Frankly, it could be both,” she said. “It is Bernie Bros, definitely Bernie Bros, but it could also be Russian bots.”
“They actually came out and said it’s not. The CEO of Twitter,” McCain shot back.
Navarro brushed off the assessment again, saying, “Twitter doesn’t have a very good record as far as I’m concerned and Facebook has an even worse record.”
“What I do think is Bernie Sanders needs to take responsibility and be accountable for what he can do, and he needs to be able to do more because, look, you can say, yeah but Trump gets away with that,” Navarro continued, turning the attack on Trump instead. “That’s true, but that’s why we don’t want Trump and we expect better and we expect more from the people running against Trump and that means they’ve got to be able to control the misogynistic attacks.”
Cohost Joy Behar came to Sanders’ defense as well, arguing that Russia had reason to hurt Sanders. “The Russians have a motive to hurt Bernie too. It’s divisive. It continues to divide Americans.”