Late Night host Seth Meyers and The View host Meghan McCain got into a very tense conversation about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), with McCain at one point snapping at Meyers “Are you her publicist?”
On Tuesday night’s episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, the host seemed determined to extract some sort of a walkback from McCain over her recent comments about Rep. Omar in the wake of the Poway synagogue shooting in California.
Over the course of three tense minutes, Meyers asked McCain if she should be as careful about the way she talks about Omar — whom he pointed out has received death threats — as McCain would like Omar to be in speaking about Israel. HE also repeatedly pointed out that Omar had apologized for her remarks well before the synagogue shooting.
“I stand by every single thing I’ve said, and if that makes me unpopular in this room, or in front of you, so be it,” Ms. McCain told Meyers.
“See, that’s a weird thing that you would take the position of trying to be unpopular, here I am trying to, you know, find the common ground on this,” Meyers said.
“Were you bothered by her language about 9/11?” McCain asked, in reference to a speech that Rep. Omar delivered in March.
Meyers said that he “thought it was taken out of context,” and when McCain asked if he’d extend the same benefit of the doubt to Trump, he replied “I would say that Donald Trump is certainly in no position to criticize her language on 9/11, based on the things that he said about 9/11, right?”
Trump has made many insensitive remarks about 9/11, including on 9/11/2001.
Things didn’t get any less tense as the conversation continued, and when McCain brought up Omar’s controversial tweets again, Meyers scolded her, saying “You do keep bringing up the two tweets that she’s apologized for, and I think that’s a little unfair to her, especially because we’ve established…”
“Are you her publicist?” McCain interrupted.
“What?” Meyers asked.
“Are you her press person?” McCain said.
“No,” Meyers said, “I’m just someone who cares about the fact that there’s someone out there who is in a minority, who has had death threats against her, and I think that we should all use the same language that you’re asking her to be careful about her language, and i would ask everybody else to be careful about theirs.”
“What would make you happy coming out of my mouth right now? I’m genuinely curious,” McCain asked, to which Meyers replied that he was perfectly happy with what was coming out of her mouth, and “I like that we spent this time together.”
Watch the clip above, via NBC.
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