Meghan McCain said Friday that President Joe Biden had crossed a line when he accused Republican leaders of “Neanderthal thinking” for rolling back coronavirus restrictions and mask mandates.
Calling it a “self-inflicted wound,” McCain compared Biden’s comments to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s claim that half of Trump’s supporters could be classified as a “basket of deplorables.” (RELATED: ‘You Are Joe Biden And You’re Losing The New York Times’: Meghan McCain Says It’s Time For Biden To Work ‘With The Other Side’)
WATCH:
“Is this a real problem, Meghan?” Cohost Joy Behar began the segment by asking McCain whether the response to Biden’s comment was “manufactured.”
“It really reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s deplorable comment which I think a lot of people on the left wrote off, and it really ended up hurting her. And I think unfortunately, it’s a self-inflicted wounded,” McCain replied. “You guys can laugh and say, ‘oh, it’s a joke, whatever,’ but Republicans across the country already feel like people on the left think they’re dumb rednecks, they’re just stupid deplorables in baskets, nobody cares with their trucks and flags. That’s what Republicans think the media thinks of them, I was actually surprised to hear him throw around that language.”
McCain went on to criticize Biden for his failure to hold a press conference, arguing that White House press secretary Jen Psaki was compounding the problem by “blowing off Republican questions and Republican talking points.”
“All it does is going to help Republicans be more tribal and think that we’re just deplorable Neanderthals. The left has no place for us, so there’s no unity whatsoever, and I think it’s — I think it’s really unfortunate. I don’t like it at all,” McCain continued.
Behar pushed back, saying Clinton’s comment had predated Americans learning “how deplorable” former President Donald Trump really was.
“So in reaction to Trump, nothing sounds that bad because of how bad he was, and then he had — he might have had a conference, you know, his press conference right away, but then he dropped out. We never saw him again. He was afraid to take calls,” Behar said.
“But it was President Trump doing one-on-one interviews with the press corps which President Biden has not done,” McCain replied, adding, “I will say also that President Trump called the gang group MS-13 animals and the media jumped all over it for weeks. I have no problem calling vicious gang members animals and that was something the media just took and ran with, and I think if it’s not okay to call gang members animals, but it’s okay to call Republicans in the middle of the country Neanderthals. It just seems like a lot of hypocrisy.”
“Remember what you’re saying there and what was just corrected. He didn’t call people Neanderthals,” Behar insisted. “He said it was neanderthal thinking.”
“Potato-potato,” McCain shrugged in response.