Meghan McCain invokes her father in comparing migrant detention centers, torture facilities

Todd Garrin
Updated

Meghan McCain spoke out against people who compare migrant detention centers to torture facilities on Tuesday’s episode of The View. “When you have a facility whose specific purpose is to torture people, that is not what’s going on,” she said.

McCain’s father, Senator John McCain, survived more than five years as a prisoner of war. The co-host invoked her late father when slamming the comparison between the centers and his experience. “My father couldn't lift me above his head as a child because of his torture wounds,” McCain shared.

Panelist Sunny Hostin expressed frustrations that the debate has been around what the centers are called rather than what is going on behind their gates. “I don’t care what we’re calling them. Kids are dying inside of them,” said Hostin.

McCain conceded that the conditions aren’t acceptable. “It is horrific and it's a complete and total humanitarian crisis, and we don't have the infrastructure to deal with it,” said McCain.

The outspoken conservative also took issue with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s recent labeling of the facilities as a “concentration camp.” McCain said, “I think hyperbole when you’re saying this is a ‘concentration camp’ and ‘this is a torture center,’ it’s when you get people to stop paying attention.”

Co-host Joy Behar disagreed. “I believe that A.O.C. calling it a ‘concentration camp,’ in a very strange way, has put the focus on the situation,” said Behar.

Many viewers on Twitter disagreed with McCain’s objection to calling the centers “torture facilities,” and insisted that what’s going on inside of them does qualify as “torture.”

Others felt Meghan was right to condemn the comparisons:

Did real housewife Bethenny Frankel yell at Sunny Hostin’s child?

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