Fox News' "Outnumbered" co-host Meghan McCain Thursday criticized President Donald Trump for his tweet attacks on MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski as "cyberbullying," while show guest and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said the president has the right to defend himself, but conceded he may have gone too far.
"We have a first lady whose platform is cyberbullying," McCain said during a panel discussion on the tweets, in which the show's other hosts agreed that the president's comments may have gone too far. "It's a very real thing ... it's hypocritical that he's still doing this."
In a pair of tweets Thursday morning, the president went after Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, who have strongly criticized Trump on their MSNBC show "Morning Joe."
In his tweets, posted while the show was on the air, Trump called Brzezinski "crazy" and said the now-engaged couple had tried to be with him at his Mar-A-Lago resort on New Year's Eve, but they were turned away because she was "bleeding badly from a face-lift."
"'Morning Joe' has personally attacked this show and I was very offended by what they said about the show," McCain said. "That being said, I woke up this morning and I kind of misread it to begin with and I was grossed out ... this is beneath the dignity of the White House and the presidency."
There is much going on with healthcare, North Korea, Russia, and more, McCain, the daughter of Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona said. "These are the issues I want to focus on."
McCain said at 32, she's been in politics her whole life, and she is concerned about the next generation of women coming into her party and seeing beyond gender policy, and she wants to be seen as a party that is respectful towards women.
"Women can get cosmetic surgery if they want," said McCain. "Bringing it up in a way that tries to diminish her and humiliate her publicly, it makes everybody across the world, country look bad. It makes my job talking to millennial women about politics much more difficult."
Meanwhile Huckabee, whose daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the White House deputy press secretary, responded to his daughter's comments on the issue and to Trump's tweet.
"Everybody knows Donald Trump, certainly those of us made it clear that if you hit me, I'll hit you back ten times harder," said Huckabee. "Anyone who didn't get that message loud and clear and in living color was not paying attention. Would I have said what he said? No, but let's be a little fair. He was called on television by 'Morning Joe' a schmuck, a goon, a thug, deranged, incapable of holding the office, those are some of the nicer things that he was called. You don't say those things about the president of the United States, especially when that president happens to be named Donald J. Trump and expect he is going to say no big deal."
But Huckabee said he would not recommend Trump fight back that way, and denied that his daughter had defended the wording of the tweets.
Sanders told Fox News Thursday that she does not think Trump has ever been a person who gets attacked without pushing back.
"There have been an outrageous number of personal attacks, not just to him but everyone around him," she said. "This is a president who fights fire with fire, and certainly will not be bullied by liberal elites."
"She didn't defend what he said, just his right to fight back which is what he did," said Huckabee.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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