"The View" co-host Meghan McCain warned President Donald Trump would be re-elected if his critics complained too loudly about him blaming the coronavirus on China.
Former co-host Sara Haines, who's filling in for self-quarantining Joy Behar, and the remotely working Whoopi Goldberg agreed the president was wrong to call COVID-19 the "China virus."
"You know, people as we've seen, people start punching people, Asian folks out," Goldberg said.
McCain insisted that she was sensitive to those concerns, but she argued that it was a losing issue for Democrats.
"I think if the left wants to focus on P.C. labeling this virus, it is a great way to get Trump re-elected," McCain said. "I don't have a problem with people calling it whatever they want. It's a deadly virus that did originate in Wuhan. I don't have a problem with it, and I think China, had they acted right away, and we had more access to information, maybe it wouldn't have gotten to the place that it is."
Goldberg and Haines pushed back, saying it was wrong to point fingers and stereotype Asians as the virus spreads, but McCain argued that China should pay a consequence its handling of the outbreak.
"Anyone who knows anything about me knows I wouldn't be a proponent of [racial targeting]," McCain said, "but the idea we're going to let China off the hook, and what you were saying, there was a lot of misinformation there using social media to target Americans to try to spread misinformation about our military and about our media, and the idea I'm going to let China get away with it, and get off the hook, there's a lot of anger about our reliance on the Chinese government right now, and our reliance on China in so many ways and that messaging from President Trump and his messaging from the very beginning that we need to remove our trade from China is going to be very effective going into 2020."
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