Republicans’ midterm collapse in Arizona has reopened one of the party’s nastiest family feuds, pitting Meghan McCain against Charlie Kirk’s political machine over the weekend.
It started when CNN commentator S.E. Cupp reacted to an Associated Press report that Arizona Democrats had won control of the state House, Senate and governor’s office for the first time in 60 years.
“Blake Masters. Kari Lake. Andy Biggs,” Cupp wrote, listing MAGA-aligned Republicans who have lost or flopped in the state. “Maybe AZ GOP should give McCain Republicans a try again...”
Tyler Bowyer, chief operating officer of Turning Point Action, hit back.
“Tell me about Martha McSally, the handpicked McCain candidate who lost both of our senate seats,” Bowyer wrote. “You are mentally challenged.”
He kept going in a later post: “Interestingly enough the McCains picked Martha McSally twice and she lost both our Senate Seats. But I guess @secupp is too brain dead to use Grok or maybe she’s just a liar.”
That drew in Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).
“I have been absolute inundated with press requests asking to talk about Arizona and Turning Point in the Arizona races. Out of respect to Erika and Charlie, I have declined,” McCain wrote, referring to Turning Point’s late founder Charlie Kirk and his widow, Erika Kirk.
“I don’t know why, particularly in this moment when we should all be reflecting and working together Turning Point wants to make an enemy of me and my family - but so be it,” she continued.
“My Dad was the last sitting Senator to easily win as a Republican and is still beloved in Arizona,” she wrote. “There are lessons from his legacy to be learned and you only further alienate the vital independents by disrespecting him.”
She also said Republican candidate Jay Feeley “met with my mother, as well as reached out to me so he clearly valued my family’s opinion.”
Bowyer didn’t back down.
“And you both did zero to help a single Republican in Arizona. Your family has helped a lot of Democrats out of Trump spite,” he wrote. “The polling was the polling, in CD-1 even, the name wasn’t helpful. A name is a name, what you do is what you do.”
The account Kari Lake War Room also piled on, reviving an old fight between McCain and Lake.
“Remember when Kari offered you an olive branch and your response was ‘no peace, b----’?” the account wrote. “You aren’t interested in reconciliation. You and your family want submission.”