Meghan McCain has recalled a “very bizarre” 2017 phone call with Donald Trump during which the then-president claimed a report about him mocking her father’s war injuries was “fake news,” and then-first lady Melania Trump jumped into the conversation to say they loved her.
In an interview with DailyMailTV released Tuesday to promote her new memoir “Bad Republican,” the conservative former co-host of “The View” remembered receiving a voicemail from the White House saying Trump wanted to speak to her after she’d condemned his reported physical mocking of her dad, the now-late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), as “abhorrent.”
“I lost my mind,’” McCain said. “And I called my dad and I said, ‘I don’t want to call him back. This is scary. I don’t want to talk to him.’ And my dad said, ‘You have to call him. He’s the president of the United States. It’s not an option. You still respect the office.’”
McCain called Trump and they had “a very bizarre conversation,” she said.
Trump “denied making fun of my dad’s war injuries and he didn’t apologize, but he said, ‘I didn’t do this, this is fake news.’” Melania Trump joined the call and told McCain: “We love you, we love your dad,” she said. “And I was like, ‘You don’t, but okay.’”
It could have been the “one and only time” the Trumps were aware of the “damage” the then-president had done to her family with his attacks,” said McCain, who left “The View” in August and joined DailyMail.com as a columnist the following month.
Despite Trump’s protestations on the call, he would continue to mock John McCain even after his death from cancer in 2018.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
