Meghan McCain delivered a warning to Democrats ahead of Thursday evening’s third Democratic primary debate on ABC.
McCain joined her fellow co-hosts on “The View” in critiquing the imminent debate, arguing that the far-left position many candidates have taken thus far in the primary could hurt them when they are forced to appeal to a much broader base in a general election.
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Co-host Joy Behar began by voicing her own concerns about Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, listing two reasons why she thought Americans might not vote for her.
“Can I say something about Elizabeth? I love Elizabeth Warren very much, and I think she would make a very good president, but I don’t believe — maybe I’m in the minority with liberals on this. I don’t believe that this country will vote for her because of two things,” Behar explained. “Number one, she believes in Medicare for all without private insurance, and I have said before, Americans don’t like anything taken away from them. We like having that. She has put that out there, and she needs to take that out and say, well, you can have it if you want. As an option. Give Americans the choice, and number two, they must counteract Trump’s lie that Democrats want open borders. Democrats want legal immigration. They want people to come in legally the way we have done since this country began, starting with the Dutch, okay? And I think that those things need to be clear. Otherwise, Elizabeth is not going to capture the heart of the — the heartland.”
McCain jumped in then, suggesting that Warren’s mistake was perhaps in leaning too far to the left in order to win the primary. “Well that is always the problem,” she said. “That is always the question though is how far left you run in a primary trying to win over the base … versus how broad you can become in a general, and I would agree. There are things a lot of people are saying especially in the CNN climate change debate that I just, like, being in Republican operative circles, the ads are writing themselves, and I understand you’re trying to win a primary.”
“Against him. Against Trump,” Behar pressed.
“No, like, Trump’s ads are writing themselves,” McCain clarified. “When I watch some of these things and you are holding your hands up and saying, ‘I believe all undocumented immigrants should have health care’ and we don’t care about that, they’re ads that will hit the base of America that will be quite effective.” (RELATED: Meghan McCain Calls Huffman And Macy ‘The Poster Children For What Everyone Hates About White Privilege’)
McCain concluded by repeating her point about consideration of the eventual general election, where the average voter would not be as far to the left. “I get hit for saying, you have to think about a general election,” she said. “I understand that, like, a primary voter who is, you know, far Progressive won’t like that, but at a certain point, you’re going to be running for all of America, not just ‘the Squad.'”