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Meghan McCain resigns as co-host of ABC’s ‘The View’ after nearly four years

This image released by ABC shows Meghan McCain on the set of "The View," in New York on April 17, 2018. McCain announced her departure from the popular morning talk show on Thursday, July 1, 2021.  (Heidi Gutman)
Stephen Battaglio Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Meghan McCain, the lone conservative voice on ABC’s daily talk show “The View,” told viewers Thursday that she was leaving her co-host chair at the end of the season this month.

McCain, the oldest daughter of the late Republican Sen. John McCain, has frequently clashed with the other panelists on the program, especially long-timers Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar.

The most recent example occurred last week when McCain and Goldberg got into a testy exchange after McCain said the press had gone easy on President Joe Biden compared with its treatment of former White House occupant Donald Trump.

The two co-hosts apologized to each other on air when they returned from a commercial break.

In May, McCain became angered over how the panel condemned Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who compared a mask-wearing mandate in the Capitol to the Holocaust. McCain said the program had not given similar attention to a spike in hate crimes against Jews that were related to pro-Palestinian protests.

McCain, 36, joined “The View” in October 2017. She had previously been a contributor on Fox News, where she also spent 10 months as a co-host on its daytime show “Outnumbered.”

The job of conservative co-host on “The View” has been a revolving door in recent years. McCain replaced Abby Huntsman, another daughter of a Republican politician, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, after Huntsman had been on the program for one year. Jedediah Bila and Nicolle Wallace, now the host of her own daily MSNBC program, also lasted a single season.

“The View,” created by ABC News journalist Barbara Walters in 1997, became more of a political forum over the last decade, with politicians from both political sides appearing in an effort to reach its predominantly female audience in the mornings.

But as the country has become more polarized, the program developed a reputation for frequent on-camera flare-ups between the co-hosts, turning the show into a favorite topic for tabloids and gossip websites.

The Daily Mail, which first reported that McCain would exit, said the host had two years left on her contract with ABC.

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