MEAWW.COM / NEWS / HUMAN INTEREST

'Cult of Trump': Is Meghan McCain a member? 'The View' host slams Katie Couric for 'deprogramming' comment

'The question is how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump'

'The View’ co-host Meghan McCain famous for being an 'anti-Trump conservative' slammed journalist Katie Couric over her recent comments made about how the country should view MAGA fans who continue to believe the “stolen election” lie. While lashing out at Couric, McCain seemed to count herself among the “cult of Trump” which was condemned by the TV journalist.

“It’s really bizarre, isn’t it, when you think about how AWOL so many of these members of Congress have gotten,” Couric said on HBO’s 'Real Time with Bill Maher' earlier this month. “But I also think some of them are believing the garbage that they are being fed 24/7 on the internet, by their constituents, and they bought into this ‘Big Lie.’ And the question is how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump.”

Days after Couric was ripped apart by the right-wing media outlets like Fox News for her comments, McCain said on 'The View' on Monday, January 25, that Couric's comments were out of bounds seemingly suggesting that McCain either voted for Trump (after hinting that she would not) or counts herself among the “cult of Trump." In her condemnation, she brought up President Joe Biden’s message of unity after his win in the 2020 election and her belief that Democrats aren’t interested in working with Republicans.

"Instead we're hearing a lot of language from people like Katie Couric talking about Republicans like me need to be deprogramed, that we're brainwashed — that 74 million Americans are basically irredeemable people, that we don't need to communicate with or in any way have anything to do with," McCain said. "I think it's horribly dangerous for the country and I also think it's horribly dangerous for Democrats. ... Honestly, they can go to hell because I don’t need to be deprogrammed."

Multiple conservative critics has blasted Couric, who has built her decades-long career by maintaining an objective point of view, following her comments on the talk show. Couric who is best known as the longtime co-anchor of NBC's 'Today' and for a five-year run in the anchor chair on the 'CBS Evening News,' was seen openly cheering on Trump's impeachment during her 'Real Time' appearance. "If you commit a crime and then you move, does that means we're not going to charge you with a crime because you're moving out of the neighborhood? I mean, it's ludicrous," Couric told Maher, who expressed opposition to Trump's second impeachment. "I think there have to be guardrails on presidential power. He incited violence. ... He was really, really inciting violence. It is insane and you cannot let that stand."

"Katie is 'retired' from any 'objective' news duties," NewsBusters executive editor Tim Graham told Fox News. "She has been a partisan for a long time." Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson told the news outlet that it was "common among liberal journalists" to threaten "deprogramming" of Trump supporters. "Katie Couric making such offensive comments comes as no surprise, she is part of a media complex that deliberately stifled the flow of information negative to Biden in order to interfere in the election," Jacobson said.

The Hill columnist and Fox News contributor Joe Concha made a similar observation when he talked about members of the media who have called for "deprogramming and silencing 75 million Americans." "This sort of rhetoric from Couric — which comes across as so condescending and elitist — underscores the divide between our media, which primarily resides in New York and Washington, and the rest of the country, which is moderate to center-right per multiple polls. And it’s why the industry is so mistrusted and frowned upon," Concha told Fox News.