Elizabeth Warren Sticks to Her Guns as Meghan McCain Insists Fox News Isn’t a ‘Racist Organization’
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren pushed back at Meghan McCain‘s criticism of her Fox News boycott, despite McCain’s insistence that the network is not “a racist organization.”
Warren has refused to appear on Fox News because she doesn’t want to “help sell ads for an outlet that profits from racism and hate,” a position that was challenged during her extended interview on Thursday’s edition of The View.
Although the other hosts have previously criticized Warren’s decision, it was Meghan McCain who confronted Warren over the issue.
“I was surprised when you rejected it, just because I know you’re someone who will go to spaces where you’re not necessarily liked,” McCain said. “And I think, with all due respect, it’s a little short-sighted not to speak to the Fox audience.”
“I used to work at Fox news, I don’t think you think I’m a bad person, at least I hope not,” McCain added.
“No, of course I don’t,” Warren interjected. Warren has never publicly alleged that people who work for, or have ever worked for, Fox News are bad people.
“Why not give this a second look, because I really do think it’s a mistake, and that’s just my anecdotal, it’s just such a huge audience and it’s such an interesting part of the country that watches,” McCain asked.
Warren told McCain “I want to go everywhere,” and spoke warmly about her recent trip to Kermit, West Virginia, “where they described it as the reddest of the red, and we did a town hall where there are folks who quite openly said I voted for Donald Trump, may vote for him again, but wanted to hear what I had to say, and wanted selfies by the time we got to the end.”
“But here’s the deal about Fox News executives,” Warren continued. “They are running a hate for profit scam.”
To applause from the audience, Warren continued by saying “they’re out there pushing a white nationalist at the time that people are marching in Charlottesville, they give a platform to people who describe immigration as making our country poorer and dirtier, they attack a young man and try to soil his reputation after he’s murdered just because they think it’ll be a good attack on Democrats.”
She described how Democratic town halls help Fox News financially, and said “I’m just not going to give them a full hour to help raise money, and help get credibility because they were willing to talk to me for an hour. I’m not going to do it.”
McCain returned to the subject of herself, telling Warren “I was really proud to work at Fox news. I don’t consider them a racist organization.”
“I will say that there’s so many people who watch that are really good people, and I just think you’re alienating audience, and for me, it just sounds like you don’t care about the people who watch Fox News,” McCain claimed.
“I care, and I’m going to find a thousand ways to reach out,” Warren said, and again explained her extensive outreach. “I am just not going to help the Fox News executives raise money off my name”.
Co-host Sunny Hostin tried to move Warren by saying “There are journalists like Shep Smith and Chris Wallace that are doing very balanced journalism there as well,” but Warren was unmoved.
She told Hostin that she didn’t want Fox News “to be able to sell advertising space on the argument that advertisers can ignore the really horrible stuff that they continue to give a platform for. It’s not 100%, it’s just what they’re giving a platform for, and I just don’t want to be part of that. I’ll keep reaching out, but not that way.”
Watch the clip above, via ABC.
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