‘The View’ Crew Battles Over Culture War, ‘War On Christmas’ As Meghan McCain, Whoopi Goldberg Butt Heads
President Donald Trump held a rally in Tampa this week and during the event, he revisited the topic of the “war on Christmas” that he’s talked about before. This bit from the Tampa rally prompted a discussion on Wednesday’s episode of The View and things got a little intense as Meghan McCain, Whoopi Goldberg, and the other ladies tried to share their viewpoints.
As Mediaite notes, President Trump has talked more than once about how now, with his administration in place, people are “happy to say ‘Merry Christmas’ again.” This was something he talked about during the campaign as well as last winter, and it came up again during his rally in Tampa on Tuesday. He said that it was early to be talking about the attack on “Merry Christmas,” but he said it’s great that “they’re” not attacking it any longer.
During Wednesday’s episode of The View, they played a short clip of Trump talking about this. After the video, Meghan McCain spoke about how she believes that this topic is a “real siren song” to those on the right.
Splinter News notes that Meghan said that this type of commentary from Trump plays to his base and she thinks he’s brilliant for talking about it. As the discussion played out, McCain said that she’s always told people “Merry Christmas” and, to her knowledge, nobody has ever been offended.
TRUMP FIGHTS "WAR ON CHRISTMAS": Trump credited his campaign for bringing back 'Merry Christmas,' saying at a rally yesterday: "Remember the attack on Merry Christmas? They’re not attacking it anymore." The co-hosts discuss. pic.twitter.com/ph5TLCcJKT
— The View (@TheView) August 1, 2018
Whoopi Goldberg said that she typically says “Happy Holidays” because she believes it’s more inclusive. Goldberg added that she does this in part because she may be talking to someone where she doesn’t know their belief system and she thinks sticking with the general phrasing works best.
The panel went back and forth on this for a while, with Sara Haines, Joy Behar, and Sunny Hostin jumping in when they could manage. Meghan took issue with Whoopi believing that “Happy Holidays” was more inclusive than “Merry Christmas,” and she soon had others on The View panel asserting that the “war on Christmas” isn’t truly an actual thing.
McCain, however, stuck to her guns. She said she believes the war on Christmas is quite real and is not “B.S.” In addition, The View host said that she’s not an intolerant person and that the culture war is a very real thing. Meghan continued by saying that nobody on the show knew or talked about the issue of a culture war before she joined the panel, and Whoopi didn’t take kindly to that assertion.
As Too Fab details, Goldberg said she isn’t going to let anybody tell her how to greet people. Whoopi stated that she doesn’t believe this is a real war, and she won’t accept that she’s at war with someone just because she doesn’t say “Merry Christmas.”
Things got rather intense as the discussion continued, and McCain said that the culture war is real. Then, Hostin inserted that this was all “fake news” and said that a war “takes two sides.” That prompted a rather heated retort by Meghan, and Whoopi shut down the conversation after McCain’s sarcastic response.
“Yeah, it’s just Republicans that are always on the bad side, always doing it, we’re the bad part of the war.”
While there will be changes to the panel heading into the next season of The View, at this point there’s been no word on either Whoopi Goldberg or Meghan McCain leaving. Given that, viewers can surely expect to see more intense discussions down the road much like this one was.
