Meghan McCain announces that she’s leaving ‘The View’ at end of July

PHOENIX – Meghan McCain, daughter of late Arizona political icon John McCain, is leaving her gig as the primary conservative voice on “The View.”

McCain, 36, announced on the air Thursday she is moving on from the long-running ABC daytime talk show at the end of July.

“This was not an easy decision,” said McCain, who joined “The View” in October 2017. “It took a lot of thought and counsel and prayer.”

She said her father, a longtime U.S. senator who was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee and died of brain cancer in 2018, urged her to take the job.

“I didn’t want to join the show. … It was my dad who encouraged me to do it,” she said.

“He said that I could never give up an opportunity to work on such an iconic show and to work with Whoopi Goldberg, and he was right. It was one of the last things he told me to do before he died.”

.@MeghanMcCain announces her departure from @TheView at the end of the show’s season, saying “this was not an easy decision.”

“I’m just eternally grateful to have had this opportunity here so, seriously, thank you from the absolute bottom of my heart.” https://t.co/ZiP1UTs2xu pic.twitter.com/eLuEAJ4KLT

— The View (@TheView) July 1, 2021

Since joining the program, McCain often has been the only conservative voice among a cast of five women on the show created by Barbara Walters in 1997.

Goldberg told McCain she enjoyed sparring over their political differences.

“Your dad was very smart,” the lead host said. “He wanted you to be here with us because I think he thought we could help toughen you up for what was coming. … It was an honor when he said ‘please take my child.’”

The show’s hosts have been appearing remotely instead of meeting in a New York studio during the COVID-19 pandemic.

McCain, who is married to conservative commentator Ben Domenech and gave birth to her first child last year, said she didn’t want to leave her family life in the Washington area to commute again to work.

“On a professional note, this show is one of the hands-down greatest, most exhilarating, wonderful privileges of my entire life,” she said.

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