Ana Navarro Takes Swipe at Meghan McCain After 'The View' Exit

Ana Navarro showed that there appears to be no love lost between her and Meghan McCain following her exit from daytime talk show The View.

McCain served as the panel's conservative voice for four years, until the summer of 2021, when she departed after clashes with her co-hosts on the ABC show.

Navarro, who had made several guest host appearances during McCain's tenure, was announced as a permanent co-presenter in August.

While McCain has been decidedly forthcoming in expressing her disdain for The View in the year since her departure, Navarro appeared to show that the feelings were mutual when she took part in a Q&A session with fans on Tuesday.

After inviting her Instagram followers to ask her questions, one asked: "Do you miss Meghan on the show?"

"Who?" Navarro cuttingly responded.

On a more positive note, Navarro stated in answer to another question that Elton John, Barbra Streisand, and Cher are among the dream guests she would like to welcome as guests on The View.

Back in September 2019, McCain stormed off The View's set following a tense exchange with Navarro over a whistleblower complaint over then-President Donald Trump. While McCain and Navarro are Republicans, both are outspoken critics of Trump.

After sharing her point of view on the matter, co-host Sunny Hostin asked McCain to clarify her stance. But as Joy Behar, Navarro and Abby Huntsman interjected, McCain yelled: "Excuse me! Maybe I was clumsy in the way that I said it."

"I'm two feet away, I don't need you to scream at me this way," Navarro responded.

"I don't know what you just said," said McCain, who continued speaking over Navarro.

"I said don't scream at me, I'm two feet away," Navarro reiterated.

"You know what, that's so rude, Ana," McCain said, before Behar announced that the show was cutting to a commercial break.

Amid a subsequent voiceover announcement about what was coming up next on the show, the audience was heard gasping as McCain walked off the stage.

During an interview with Dan Wootton of British TV network GB News over the summer, McCain jokingly suggested that the show, which was launched by Barbara Walters in 1997, has taken a turn for the worse since her exit.

"Not that I'm paying any attention, but they were not nominated for any Emmys since the show was left," McCain said in the remote interview. "They're not getting the same kind of attention they did. They've yet to replace me, which is very strange."

In reality, The View was nominated for nine Daytime Emmy Awards this year, including a nod in the category of Outstanding Informative Talk Show Host. McCain was named in the lineup of hosts, as the nominations are for the previous year's work.

Elsewhere in her interview, McCain spoke about her time on the show, which saw her clashing with her co-hosts, including moderator Whoopi Goldberg and fellow panelist Behar, on a number of occasions.

Explaining what she had been going through behind the scenes, the daughter of late Senator John McCain said: "I did it through a lot of personal tragedy. I had a miscarriage when I was doing the show... and my dad obviously passed. I just went through a lot of personal things.

"I had my baby during COVID and when I came back from maternity leave... Joy said, 'I didn't miss you at all.' There was a feeling when I got back from the hosts that they were happy I was gone, and they didn't want me to come back.

"I think a lot of us reassessed our life during COVID and I was like, 'I just don't want to continue giving what I believed was a benefit, having a strong conservative voice on the show, to women who didn't seem to like me or be grateful for what I gave to them."

"The point of the show is to have opposing viewpoints," McCain said. "I love debating, I love arguing. I can be very respectful. I think of it like boxing, where you spar and then you push gloves at the end and you can be friends after.

"I love arguing, I love debating, but I don't like when things get personal. And unfortunately for me, it was just very personal, and it started involving my child and I just... It didn't seem worth it to me."

She also stated during her interview that in the show's 25 years she is "one of two hosts that ever left on their own instead of was fired in the entire history of the show, which I'm also proud of that."

In an interview with Newsweek back in April, Meghan McCain said that another factor she had found difficult during her time on The View was the feeling that she had become the show's "villain" as a Republican voice among mainly Democrats.

"I got really worn out from being a villain," McCain told Newsweek. "I don't want to do that anymore. I know who I am. I know what I believe. And I stand by everything that I believe. It's more the screaming at each other, crossfire, we hate each other, we have to yell. It's great for TV. And it's great for ratings. It's not great for me as a person."

The TV personality, who is now a columnist for the Daily Mail, added a chapter in her recently released book, Bad Republican, about her tumultuous time on The View, which saw her quit after an on-air spat with Behar.

"I think there's this feeling about The View that it's like the Mafia, that when you leave, you need to do it quietly, and you need to do it on their terms," McCain told Newsweek. "And I left on my own. I had two years left on my contract.

"I obviously wasn't quiet, because I ended up adding a chapter explaining why I left The View because everyone was so curious. And I know as a consumer, when I read other books by people who I've watched on television, I always want to know a little bit about the context of their decision.

"I have been in this industry a really long time and I knew I'm never going to appear on The View again. I'm completely, 100 percent comfortable with that. I wouldn't be comfortable appearing on that show, and I don't think they would be comfortable having me. And I'm so fine with that it's ridiculous."