Meghan McCain, 37, spoke out against her former colleague Whoopi Goldberg, 66, over the comedian’s comments about the Holocaust in a tweet on Tuesday February 1. The former View co-host shared that she was reluctant to speak out against her old job, but she wanted to share how “heartbroken” she was to hear the controversial comments that Whoopi made, saying that the Holocaust was “not about race,” during Monday’s episode.
I hate commenting on my old employer because I have moved in every way a person can move on.
That being said I am an activist against antisemitism and it is a big part of my life.
The growing threat is real and virulent and everywhere. I am heartbroken about what was said.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) February 1, 2022
Meghan, who left The View in August 2021, seemed hesitant to weigh in on the controversy. “I hate commenting on my old employer because I have moved in every way a person can move on,” she wrote, before turning to how upset she was by the comments. “That being said I am an activist against antisemitism and it is a big part of my life. The growing threat is real and virulent and everywhere. I am heartbroken about what was said,” she tweeted.
Whoopi received significant backlash and accusations of antisemitism after a “Hot Topics” discussion about a Tennessee school district’s decision to ban the highly regard graphic novel Maus by Art Spiegelman, which is a memoir about his father’s time in the Holocaust. “The Holocaust isn’t about race,” she said during the show. Her co-host Joy Behar pointed out that the Nazis did consider Jewish people to be members of a different race, but Whoopi reiterated that she didn’t think it was about race at the time, and explained her position. “It’s about man’s inhumanity to man,” she said, shortly before the show went to a commercial.
On Tuesday’s episode of The View, Whoopi addressed the controversy and apologized again. The show also started with an interview with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to explain why Whoopi’s comments were so hurtful. ““It is indeed about race, because Hitler and the Nazis considered Jews to be an inferior race. Now, words matter, and mine are no exception. I regret my comments, as I said, and I stand corrected. I also stand with the Jewish people, as they know and y’all know, because I’ve always done that,” Whoopi said at the top of the program.
While Meghan said she “hate[s] commenting” on her old job, she didn’t shy away from opening up about her time on the show in her memoir Bad Republican. In one chapter, she recounted the last straw before making her decision to go. She spoke about how she felt the show was a “toxic work environment” and revealed exchanges with both Joy and Whoopi that eventually led to her choice to quit the daytime talk show.