"The View" co-host Meghan McCain blasted Fox News for downplaying the coronavirus threat for weeks.
The show's panelists noticed the conservative network had changed its tone since last week, when hosts compared COVID-19 to the flu and urged viewers to continue flying, and McCain said they endangered public health by trying to protect President Donald Trump politically.
"One of the revelations coming out of this is Tucker Carlson got President Trump to believe in this virus," McCain said. "He drove to Mar-A-Lago to convince President Trump, and this was sourced in multiple places and he was one of the people who changed the president's mind."
Co-host Sunny Hostin said that gave her no comfort, and McCain snapped at her.
"Can I finish my thought?" McCain said. "As the Fox employee, it is important at this point again to the No. 1 cable news program -- they lap every other network by a lot. Instead of sitting here and judging viewers for over a period of time, and we'll have this conversation when I think it's more important, why they distrust the mainstream media, instead we should implore the executives at Fox News if, God forbid, anything like this happens again, to put doctors on air."
"I'm not a doctor, I'm not saying I'm a doctor," she added. "I never have, but putting in place medical professionals, that was part of the problem, and you get so hunkered down, especially me as the only conservative left in mainstream media -- at least that's how it feels most of the time -- you get tribal and you're, like, it has to be an attack against the president, it has to be an attack against Republicans."
"When you are dealing with a pandemic, and by the way, we had it happen on this show as well, not just me," McCain concluded. "We had a Republican saying we should wash our hands and pray it away. It wasn't just on Fox News, it happened right here on 'The View.'"
