McCain, Booker brawl over ‘crazy’ gun buybacks: ‘That is a left-wing fever dream’

“The View” co-host Meghan McCain and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J), a 2020 White House hopeful, had a heated exchange on Wednesday after she called a gun buyback program “crazy” and “a left-wing fever dream.”

“When I heard you and Beto say that, to me, that’s like a left-wing fever dream,” McCain said to Booker on Wednesday, referring to another Democratic presidential candidate, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas). “And I want to know how you think you and Beto are going to go to red states and go to my brother’s house and get his AR-15s because, let me tell you, he’s not giving it back.”

{mosads}Booker replied that his plan is not as aggressive as O’Rourke’s, which prompted McCain to reply, “Good! Because he’s crazy!”

“We should watch the way we talk about each other,” Booker cautioned. “Seriously, we can’t tear the character of people down. We have different beliefs.”

In an exchange with @MeghanMcCain, Cory Booker pushes back against McCain’s criticism of Beto O’Rourke and explains his support for mandatory assault weapon buybacks: “Other countries have done it. We did it with machine guns” https://t.co/gDKtp7VYF4 pic.twitter.com/yrLaNnDEGS

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 30, 2019

McCain, who has had a running feud with O’Rourke in recent months, replied by stating the former Texas congressman “has no problem doing it to me.”

“He was very nasty to me about this,” she added.

“You and I both know that just because somebody does something to us, doesn’t mean we show the same thing back to them,” Booker replied.

“I’m not running for president, with all due respect,” McCain retorted. “And the way he talks about me inciting violence on this, I take very seriously and I speak for a lot of red state Americans whether he likes it or you like it or not, there’s a lot of Republicans you have to win over.”

The conversation eventually shifted to how Booker would execute his buyback plan, which McCain said her brother, a gun owner, would not abide by.

“So you’re going to go to my brother’s house?” she said. “My brother won’t do it.”

“Why are we playing into fear-mongers that want to give this vision that people are going to show up at your house taking your guns away?” Booker said while adding that buybacks have worked before.

The back-and-forth comes as Booker and O’Rourke have proposed buyback programs for certain types of guns, drawing criticism from Republicans and other Democratic candidates including South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

Booker is currently polling at 1.6 percent in the RealClearPolitics index of polls for the 2020 Democratic nomination.