Meghan McCain slams “The View” host Sara Haines for referencing her on air: 'These women will never quit me'

"This is hilarious," McCain, who left "The View" in 2021, said in response to a clip of Haines referencing McCain on a live show.

In apparent celebration of LGBTQ+ people everywhere this Pride month, conservative political commentator and ex-View cohost Meghan McCain spiced up her latest criticism of her former workplace with a powerful invocation of a key Brokeback Mountain quote.

John McCain's daughter took aim Thursday at Sara Haines — with whom she sat at the Hot Topics table during her tenure on The View until her 2021 exit — when she fired off a critical tweet in response to a fan-posted clip from the talk show that saw Haines reference McCain during a recent live broadcast.

"This is hilarious," McCain said of the clip, which saw Haines reference a past View personality for getting "mad about Dr. Fauci" amid a wider discussion about Marjorie Taylor Greene criticizing the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during a June 3 House meeting.

Related: Whoopi Goldberg stops The View discussion to tell Sara Haines she's skinny: 'You're not pregnant?'

"Imagine still being shocked people didn’t want their kids masked, vaccinated with an untested vaccine or to have our families isolated in one state while other states were open for no other reason than politics," McCain continued, before conjuring sweet thoughts of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Ang Lee's Oscar-winning 2005 romance. "F--- Fauci. These women will never quit me."

On the episode in question, Haines and current View cohosts Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin reacted to Greene's criticism of Fauci during a chat about decorum in domestic politics.

"It started, I remember, here, with someone here, getting so mad about Dr. Fauci. It felt like it happened overnight. We went from a pandemic..." Haines said, without explicitly using McCain's name, later trailing off to address Behar's apparent confusion over the reference, before Haines re-stressed: "Someone here."

A representative for The View did not immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly's request for comment.

McCain's tweet came six months after she announced on social media that she was considering legal action against The View, following panelist Ana Navarro's on-air suggestion during a discussion about Hunter Biden's legal woes that unnamed View cohosts attempted to "influence-peddle" on their last names. McCain interpreted the comment as a dig at her, though she isn't the only figure whose seat at the table sat in the shadow of a famous political father, as Abby Huntsman — daughter of Jon Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah — also sat at the Hot Topics table from 2018-2020.

Since departing the program in 2021, McCain has repeatedly used her platform to speak out against The View, even going as far as to call the lineup of current hosts "crazy old people just yelling about me all of the time" on the show.

Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Though Haines hasn't criticized McCain by name, many interpreted a quote from a December 2023 Behind the Table podcast interview with longtime View fan Matt Rogers to be a dig at her former colleague.

"I really like that the conversations can be had, and without anyone — and I'm not going to name any names — without getting super defensive or personal, so that when you're watching it, you don't feel in a state of anxiety or discomfort," Rogers said, though he didn't name McCain specifically. Haines cut in to suggest "uncomfortable" was the word he was looking for, and later confirmed that the behind-the-scenes dynamic "was as uncomfortable as you received it."

When asked about the current state of her relationship with McCain, Hostin told EW in May that she was unaware that McCain had unfollowed her on social media.

“I didn’t know,” Hostin explained with a laugh. “I didn’t know anything happened. I’m not on social media like that. I guess I’ll give her a call. Maybe she broke up with me and I don’t know it. I don’t know what to say. I don’t think anything happened!"

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.