Meghan McCain: I don’t hate America but I just hate it without John McCain’s leadership

Meghan McCain, a co-host of “The View” and daughter of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said Saturday that she “hates” the U.S. without her father’s “leadership.” 

“As an American, I hate this country without him in it,” McCain said in an interview on CNN’s “Van Jones Show.” “I know that sounds awful. I don’t hate America but I just hate it without his leadership.”

{mosads}The comments from McCain came as she spoke about grief in the months since her father died. McCain said that she continues to be “sad all the time” as she adjusts to life without her dad. 

“And I miss him in ways I never even could have even fathomed, and then I try and say, ‘What would my dad say?’ He’d say, ‘We are McCains and we don’t feel sorry for ourselves, and we’re blessed. And get up and keep fighting, Meghan.'”

Asked about her political views and the fact that she’s no longer calling herself a Republican, McCain responded that she calls herself a “conservative.”

“I’m still a member of the Republican Party. I still vote on the Republican ticket, but Republicanism is so tied up with being for Trump,” she said, adding that she understands why people voted for President Trump as well as why people think “he’s tearing this country apart.”

She went on to say that the Republican Party under Trump is not something she recognizes anymore, arguing that the GOP has seemed to lose “character,” something for which her father advocated. 

John McCain, a longtime Republican lawmaker who won the Republican nomination for president in 2008, died in 2018 of brain cancer at the age of 81. 

Many lauded McCain as an antidote to Trump’s brand of politics in the days after his death. 

Meghan McCain said during a funeral service in Washington, D.C., that “the America of John McCain has no need to be made great again because America was always great,” a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.