Elisabeth Hasselbeck called out “The View’s” Meghan McCain for comments she made criticizing Hasselbeck’s stance on the coronavirus crisis, telling the host to “get [her] quotes right.”
McCain appeared on Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live” this week and was asked by host Andy Cohen to address what Hasselbeck said during a guest appearance on “The View” shortly before California’s stay-at-home order went into effect. A viewer question presented by Cohen quoted Hasselbeck as saying, “We should pray the virus away.”
“I took this virus seriously from the very beginning and thought a lot of this rhetoric was really dangerous,” McCain said. “I don’t need to co-host with her again and it’s unfortunate because I’ve been a huge fan for a long time. Anybody who’s screwing around with this virus and sort of putting out misinformation, I don’t have a lot of time for right now.”
In an Instagram post on Friday, Hasselbeck protested this characterization of her views.
“I don’t know why you are taking an opportunity to be so aggressive toward me during such a stressful time,” she wrote. “I never said I had the power to pray COVID away … My quote was that I am going to pray and Purell … PRAYER will ALWAYS be my FIRST RESPONSE AND MY BEST DEFENSE. We have had a family member hospitalized and I have asthma. This is all hard and stressful enough- turn off the meanness as the world needs more togetherness and kindness.”
Hasselback was a co-host of “The View” in 2003 and left in 2013, when she joined the Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends,” replacing Gretchen Carlson. She left two years later to spend more time with her family. McCain became a host on the ABC talk show in 2017.
You can read Hasselbeck’s post below and watched the accompanying video below.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Y6rLGDe4H/