‘Let Me Take a Drink’: Sunny Hostin Takes On Meghan McCain’s Brutal Criticism of The View

The View co-host Sunny Hostin appeared on Andy Cohen‘s Watch What Happens Live this week where she was asked by an audience member, “What do you think of Meghan McCain‘s recent column criticizing The View and saying the show just keeps getting worse?”

“Oh, let me take a drink,” Hostin replied before taking a sip of her cocktail.

“Um, what can I say? I have not read the column,” Hostin continued.

“I did,” Cohen quipped to audience laughter.

The article in question appeared in the Daily Mail last week. The lengthy headline read:

Rosie O’Donnell and I don’t agree on much – but neither of us would ever go back on the toxic ‘View.’ 

Both McCain and comedian Rosie O’Donnell were fixtures on The View for a time.

“I imagine being a former co-host of ABC News’ The View feels much like having a very public, very nasty breakup with an infamous ex-boyfriend,” McCain wrote. “Everyone knows it ended in complete disaster. And absolutely everyone wants to talk about it.

“I wasn’t crazy. They were,” McCain added. “There is nothing on God’s green earth that could convince me to ever walk on to that set again.”

McCain famously exited the show in 2021 after an on-air dust-up with co-host Joy Behar, later claiming a toxic work environment.

Hostin took the high road when responding, “I have heard about it, and, um, our show is a wonderful place.”

“Ratings are great,” Cohen interjected, before Hostin continued and took the high road:

They’ve always been great. And they’re really good now; we’re the number one talk show in the country, I’m happy to say, and I don’t know, you know? I’m surprised that she’s writing about the book. I know her husband likes to mean-tweet about me, which is shocking. But Meghan and I have always been friendly, we remain friends. And I don’t think she’s doing television anymore. I think you should hire her for one of the Housewives franchise. She’d be great on Patomac or any of them. And I wish her well. We’re really happy on the show. We’re really a cohesive group and, God bless.

Cohen agreed that McCain would make a compelling cast mate on one his Real Housewives shows, which air on Bravo.

Current View co-hosts include Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, Ana Navarro, Sara Haines, Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Hostin. The show was created by legendary journalist Barbara Walters in 1997 and is described on IMDB as “Five women with very different outlooks on politics, Hollywood and its stars, and current events discuss these and other divisive topics of the day.”

Past co-hosts include Star Jones, Meredith Vieira, Debbie Matenopoulos, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Sherri Shepherd. O’Donnell left the show in 2007 after just one year amid a clash with conservative voice Hasselbeck.

McCain wrote of her dissatisfaction, “I’ve never revealed this before, but I was also pushed off topics that I thought were newsworthy by show producers.” She added, “Topics were spiked because of scandals from my co-hosts’ past,” including blackface controversies.

The View has not formally responded to McCain’s article.