The conservative pundit who mocked “the ghost of John McCain” in her Conservative Political Action Conference speech earlier this month is standing by her remarks.
In a Fox News appearance Saturday, Michelle Malkin refused to offer an apology for her jab at the late Republican senator from Arizona, claiming the media took her comments out of context even though they ignited a firestorm of backlash.
Malkin accused journalists of trying “to turn it into a stupid catfight rather than talking about the real problem that there has been and the fight that’s going on on immigration.”
“I’ve always had my heart in the place of the grassroots of the conservative movement, not the Republican Party,” she said. “The fact is that the ghost of John McCain and all of the other big business, Chamber of Commerce-type of Republicans that have been selling out the American people, that’s where the Republican Party needs to reconnect, and they can’t simply rely on the Democrat Party falling apart.”
During her CPAC talk, Malkin called for immigration reform, railing against the development of sanctuary cities, which she laid to several politicians including “the ghost of John McCain,” whom she named while pointing skyward.
The speech immediately drew criticism from daughter Meghan McCain, who called it “ghoulish and deeply disturbed political propaganda,” and wife Cindy McCain, who rebuked Malkin as someone who never knew her husband.
Even conservative CNN host S.E. Cupp responded, tweeting that CPAC had devolved into “a place for agitprop and mean-spirited garbage.”
MSNBC host and former Republican Joe Scarborough also took a moment to denounce Malkin’s attack in his broadcast days later, calling it “hellacious” and “inhumane.”