Meghan McCain has apologized for her role in spreading anti-Asian sentiment on “The View” after being called out for hypocrisy on John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight.”
“I condemn the reprehensible violence and vitriol that has been targeted towards the Asian-American community,” McCain tweeted Monday. “There is no doubt Donald Trump’s racist rhetoric fueled many of these attacks and I apologize for any past comments that aided that agenda.”
McCain was not on Monday’s episode of “The View,” Deadline reported.
On Sunday night, Oliver dedicated a segment of his HBO show to America’s ingrained hatred and violence toward Asian Americans in the wake of last week’s massage spa shootings in Atlanta that killed eight people, six of them Asian women.
During this segment, Oliver pointed out that McCain had published posts on Instagram and Twitter last week that simply read “Stop Asian Hate” and captioned it with a string of broken heart emojis.
“A fine sentiment to throw up on Twitter after the fact,” Oliver said after slamming the TV personality for past comments she made on her daytime talk show that helped fuel the problem (which you can watch starting at the 3:35 mark in the video below).
“Last Week Tonight” also played a March 2020 clip from “The View” in which McCain was dismissive toward people who condemned then-President Donald Trump’s racist nicknames for the coronavirus, like the “China virus.” The argument was that the racially charged monikers would snowball into violence against Asians, which McCain shrugged off as liberal “P.C.-labeling.”
“I don’t have a problem with people calling it whatever they want,” she said in the clip. “It is a deadly virus that did originate in Wuhan.”
In a longer video of her 2020 remarks (above), McCain added:
“I don’t have a problem with it, and I think China, had they acted right away and we had more access to information, maybe it wouldn’t have gotten to the place that it is.” McCain said she was pointing fingers at China but was not a “proponent” of racial profiling.
“Oh, good! Meghan McCain doesn’t have a problem with it,” Oliver said on his show Sunday after playing the 2020 clip. “Listen not to the scores of Asian Americans telling everyone that the term is dangerous and offensive. Instead, gather around and take the word of a wealthy white woman who’s dressed like she’s about to lay off 47 people over Zoom.”
To hear all of Oliver’s comments, check out the video above.