Meghan McCain: ‘Big difference between the Hanoi Hilton’ and border facilities

“The View” co-host Meghan McCain on Tuesday rejected the notion that migrant detention shelters along the United States’ southern border are “torture facilities” like the one her father, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), was kept in during the Vietnam War.

“I know what a torture facility looks like. I’ve been to one,” McCain said. “When you have a facility whose specific purpose is to torture people, that is not what’s going on. Yes, it’s inhumane, but there’s a big difference between the Hanoi Hilton and what’s happening at the border right now.”

McCain’s father was imprisoned at the infamous “Hanoi Hilton” prison for more than five years during the Vietnam War.{mosads}

While serving in the Navy, John McCain was captured after his plane crashed during a mission. He suffered multiple broken bones, was tortured and beaten, and refused to be released ahead of other U.S. soldiers who were taken prisoner before him.

The “View” co-host agreed that the conditions of facilities to house migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border were “horrific” and classified as a “complete and total humanitarian crisis,” but she rejected the label of “torture facilities.”

“We should be less concerned about what we’re calling them and what is happening inside of them,” co-host Sunny Hostin responded. “I don’t think it matters what we’re calling them. Kids are dying inside of them … We should care about the dead kids that have come out of them.”

McCain recalled that her father couldn’t lift her over his head when she was a child because of his torture wounds.

“But that was a war and they are grown-ups,” co-host Joy Behar said.

“It may not have intended to be a torture facility, but has turned out to be torturous,” Behar added of current conditions at migrant shelters. 

The discussion comes amid reports about poor conditions at migrant facilities along the border that reportedly led to more than 300 migrant children being relocated from a remote detention camp near El Paso. 

Justice Department official Sarah Fabian faced backlash this week after she recently argued that the government did not need to provide “toothbrushes and soap” to fulfill sanitary conditions. 

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is turning away donations of toys, soap, toothbrushes, diapers and medicine for migrant children housed at the border, the Texas Tribune reported Monday.

“Even Charles Manson had soap. Timothy McVeigh had toothpaste,” Behar said of the notorious murderers. “I hate to say it but Trump couldn’t live without hairspray for an hour but he allows this to go on.”