Meghan McCain Breaks Ranks to Praise Elizabeth Warren's Childcare Plan

A relatively tame episode of The View ended on a surprising note when Meghan McCain endorsed Sen. Elizabeth Warren's commitment to paid family leave and universal childcare. After revealing that she and Warren frequently texted when she was pregnant last year, the conservative co-host broke ranks and indicted Republicans, the supposed party of family values, for their failure to support working women. "I've actually been disappointed that Republicans haven't gotten on board and seen the bigger picture of this," said McCain. "A big reason why we're having so many problems in this country is that women really are punished, still, for having children."

It's not every day that McCain gets flustered by a guest, but Warren's appearance on Tuesday, meant to promote her new book Persist, seemed to rattle the co-host, who is typically hesitant to discuss personal topics. "We texted each other when I was pregnant, and then after I gave birth, and I was very scared, and I was very hormonal, and for some reason you were a lovely person for me to talk to these feelings about," McCain told The View's guest on Tuesday morning. The co-host added that she "was scared she was going to get fired for being pregnant," a feeling she admitted was "not rational," but made her think about women who may not work at a prominent show on ABC.

"I work for ABC and Disney, and I'm worried about losing my job -- and then on top of everything else, having to deal with how conservatives should be caring about the family, and caring about women, and caring about how people are treated in companies," she trailed off. "You care about women, clearly. I mean, I'm a Republican and you care about how I was feeling. What do you think we can do to bring more Republicans on board with this issue?"

.@SenWarren tells @TheView how her personal experience as a working mom has inspired her lifelong fight for national paid family leave and child care support, which she details in her new book #Persist: “If we don’t make changes, my granddaughter will face the same things.” pic.twitter.com/tKgjeRsui4

— The View (@TheView) May 4, 2021

Warren thanked McCain for spreading awareness about Paid Family Leave and childcare among right-wing circles before addressing the question directly. "For a long, long time, men in the United States Senate and Congress and the White House have talked about infrastructure," she said. "But we also need childcare. You want parents to be able to go to work? You want women to be able to go to work? Then we need affordable, available childcare."

"We have more women in the senate now, but we need more. We need more women to lift their voices. We need more women to persist," added Warren. "And the stories, but also the action items in this book, that's what it's all about. That's how you make change."

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Claire Spellberg Lustig is the Senior Editor at Primetimer and a scholar of The View. Follow her on Twitter at @c_spellberg.