Meghan McCain rips House GOP leader for 'intentionally' attacking Rep. Liz Cheney because she refused 'to debase herself to Cheeto Jesus'

• Meghan McCain went to bat for Liz Cheney after House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy criticized her.
• The GOP is "shivving her" for "refusing to debase herself to Cheeto Jesus," or Trump, McCain said.
• She said it was "the most asinine politics" she'd seen and promised "consequences" for the GOP.

Meghan McCain, a cohost of "The View," didn't mince words on Wednesday when reacting to House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy's assessment that Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming has "got real problems."

McCarthy's comments were caught on a hot mic while he was talking to the "Fox & Friends" host Steve Doocy off-air before a live interview on Tuesday.

"I think she's got real problems," McCarthy said of Cheney, who has found herself in former President Donald Trump's crosshairs because of her refusal to endorse his lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

"I've had it with her," McCarthy said, according to Axios. "You know, I've lost confidence ... Well, someone just has to bring a motion, but I assume that will probably take place."

On Wednesday, McCain said: "Well, let's cut the crap. He wasn't caught on a hot mic. I think anyone in politics knows that that was done intentionally."

She added: "What's happening is it's very clear, and I'm going to be a little crass: They're shivving her for her going on television multiple times and saying that the election wasn't stolen and for refusing to debase herself to Cheeto Jesus.

"I don't understand what's going on. I have spent the past five years of my life trying to accept, understand, and include the MAGA base of this party. And the message that's being sent by the highest member of Republicans in Congress is that women like me and Liz Cheney who refuse to bend the knee to President Trump but still remain loyal Republicans, we don't have a place in this party, we are worthless, we are not worth fighting for to keep."

Cheney is the third-highest-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives and the chair of the Republican conference. But she's found herself increasingly sidelined as Trump leans into his role as a GOP kingmaker and goes on the warpath against members of his party, like Cheney, who have condemned his efforts to delegitimize the election result.

It would be "Kafkaesque to try and spin this in a way that this is about anything else but her not supporting President Trump," McCain said of McCarthy's comments about Cheney.

McCain said that "what happened when we doubled down" on the notion that "Trump is the future" is that "we lost four - count 'em, four - Senate seats in the last election in red states, including in my home state of Arizona."

"We lost a giant election, spectacularly," McCain continued, adding that the party was alienating college-educated women like her with its Trumpist tilt.

"It's the most asinine politics I have seen in a really, really long time, in a cacophony of asinine politics," she said. "I feel very defensive of Liz Cheney, and if you do this, which it looks like they're going to do, I promise you there will be consequences."

-Mediaite (@Mediaite) May 5, 2021