Meghan McCain to Trump Jr. on ‘The View’: ‘You and your family have hurt a lot of people’

Meghan McCain confronted Donald Trump Jr. on Thursday’s episode of “The View,” telling the president’s eldest son that “you and your family have hurt a lot of people.”

“Mr. Trump, a lot of Americans in politics miss character,” McCain said, appearing to read from prepared remarks. “And a lot of people miss the soul of this country. You and your family have hurt a lot of people and put a lot of people through a lot of pain, including the Khan family who is a Gold Star family that I think should be respected for the loss of their son. Does all of this make you feel good?”

“You and your family have hurt a lot of people…including the Khan family,” @MeghanMcCain says. “Does all of this make you feel good?”

Trump Jr: “I don’t think any of that makes me feel good, but I do think that we got into this because we wanted to do what’s right for America” pic.twitter.com/dcrTrxtB9I

— ABC News (@ABC) November 7, 2019

President Trump has caught flak in the past for targeting critics with military ties, including the co-host’s late father, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father who spoke at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

“I don’t think any of that makes me feel good, but I do think that we got into this because we wanted to do what’s right for America,” Trump Jr., who serves as an executive of the Trump Organization, responded on “The View.”

Trump Jr. began to tout his father’s economic policies and the administration’s low unemployment records for African Americans before he was interrupted by co-host Whoopi Goldberg.

“Oh come on,” Goldberg said.

Trump Jr. continued by saying he understands his father is “controversial” and has “offended a lot of people.”

“But I also understand he took on the establishment and that’s the premier sin in American politics these days, to do that,” Trump Jr. said.

Meghan McCain, who has repeatedly spoken out about the president before, reiterated her original question and asked Trump Jr. about character in politics.

“I understand what you’re saying about policy, but when you’re talking about attacking Gold Star families, who have given the ultimate sacrifice, more than any of us in this room have given, and you put them through pain — does it make you feel like this was worth it?” McCain asked.

Trump publicly feud with the Khan family when he was running for the White House in 2016.

Khan, whose son Capt. Humayun Khan was killed during the Iraq War in 2004, gave an impassioned speech denouncing Trump on the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Trump, the then-GOP nominee, offered several responses at the time, including going after Khan and suggesting that his wife Ghazala Khan might not have spoken because “maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say.”

Trump Jr. defended his father’s tactics on Thursday, saying, “When he’s under constant attack by the same people, when he’s under attack by the establishment, the reality is this: He’s a counterpuncher.”

Co-host Sunny Hostin interjected and reminded Trump Jr. about his father’s longstanding attacks on John McCain, even after the senator’s death last year.

“I understand that and I’m sorry about that,” Trump Jr. said. “They did have differences, I agree with that.”

Meghan McCain, whose father was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, appeared to allude to Trump’s role in pushing the “birtherism” theory that former President Obama was not born in the U.S.

“It’s just, for me, it would not have been worth it,” McCain countered. “This would not have been worth it. And I think people can go to the moment where my dad had stopped someone from saying Obama was a Muslim. And the pain, inflicting pain on so many people, wouldn’t have been worth it to me and my family to the White House.”

“So I just want to know, is it worth it?” she concluded.

“I think it depends on the hat that I’m wearing. For me, as a citizen, as a father of kids in New York City, it hasn’t exactly been peaches and cream for us either,” Trump said.

He added that it is “worth it” to hear people saw they are so happy to have voted for his father.