Having taken a seat at the table on “The View” this season, Sen. John McCain’s daughter Meghan has become one of the most visible Republican voices on television. As the lone conservative on the show, her views frequently make headlines, as they did on Monday: McCain criticized Michelle Wolf’s routine at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner as “distasteful” and got fierce pushback from the panel. But McCain has gotten attention for inflaming other Republicans as well. Here’s what you need to know about John McCain’s daughter.
1. She’s a millennial
Meghan McCain was born to John McCain and Cindy McCain in 1984. She’s the oldest of John and Cindy’s four children; Meghan has three half-siblings from her father’s first marriage. She appeared at the 1996 Republican National Convention and gave a speech at the 2008 convention which nominated her father for president. In 2014, she lamented that Washington didn’t understand millennials like her, who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative. “Washington is not having a nuanced conversation about young people,” she said.
2. She breaks from the GOP on social issues
Being John McCain’s daughter doesn’t mean that Meghan tows the party line. She has vocally disagreed with conservatives — including her father — on the issue of same-sex marriage. In 2009, she posed with her mother, Cindy, for the NO H8 campaign against a proposed ban on same-sex marriage in California, while her father supported a ban. Today, she serves on the board of GLAAD.
“Every day of my life I come against a conservative who wants me to shut up,” she told Politico in 2014. “I do believe I’m right and they are wrong. I do believe that unless we start reaching out to minorities and women, and honestly start supporting the LGBT community there is no more future for the Republican party.”
On the issue of abortion, Meghan describes herself as pro-life but vocally advocates sex education and birth control.
3. She has a degree in art history
Meghan got an art history degree from Columbia and did internships at “Newsweek” and “Saturday Night Live,” which she followed up by working for her father’s presidential campaign, writing books and landing media gigs, including short-lived shows on Pivot and Fox News.
4. She got in trouble for a “Playboy” interview
Meghan landed in hot water with her father for an interview she did with “Playboy” in April 2012, “where I did the 20 questions and I was a little too candid,” she told “Politico.” Her remarks included “I love sex” and “I’m strictly dickly.”
“He was not pleased at all,” McCain said of her father. “That’s actually one of the few fights we’ve ever gotten in about things I’ve done publicly. He was just so embarrassed. And he was like, ‘Why can’t you be like Chelsea Clinton?’ He didn’t really say that, but that’s what he’s thinking in his mind. So I just try to curb it a little more. I can’t really regret things. You just have to move on and live your life.”
5. She got married in 2017
In November 2017, Meghan McCain married Ben Domenech, publisher of the conservative website The Federalist. On Apr. 30, Domenech tweeted about a visit he had with John McCain, who is battling brain cancer: “John hugged me tonight. He asked me to take care of Meghan. I said I would.”
