Meghan McCain

Meghan Marguerite McCain (born October 23, 1984) is an American television personality, columnist, and author.

She has worked for ABC News, Fox News, and MSNBC.

She is the daughter of politician John McCain and diplomat Cindy McCain.

She was born on October 23, 1984, in Phoenix, Arizona, and attended Phoenix Country Day School and Xavier College Preparatory, an all-girl private Catholic high school.

McCain has been a public figure for much of her life, first appearing at the 1996 Republican National Convention.

She appeared at the 1996 Republican National Convention when she was 11 years of age.

On April 5, 2003, McCain was presented to society at the Board of Visitors Debutante Ball at the Camelback Inn in Paradise Valley, Arizona.

McCain received media attention in her own right in 2007 for her blog, McCain Blogette. On the blog, she documented life during the John McCain 2008 presidential campaign.

She attended Columbia University, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in art history in 2007.

McCain originally planned to become a music journalist and interned at Newsweek and Saturday Night Live.

McCain launched a blog entitled McCain Blogette in 2007, documenting her father's presidential campaign as well as musing about fashion, music, and pop culture.

On June 12, 2008, McCain wrote on her blog that she had changed her party registration to Republican.

She said she did so "as a symbol of my commitment to my dad and to represent the faith I have in his ability to be an effective leader for our country and to grow and strengthen the Republican party when he is elected president of the United States."

In her book Dirty Sexy Politics, McCain states that she nearly overdosed on Xanax on Election Day.

In 2008, she published a book entitled My Dad, John McCain.

Although her blogging was devoted to gaining support for her father among the Generation Y electorate, by October 2008, Steve Schmidt and other McCain campaign staffers had substantially limited her appearances on the campaign trail because they deemed her "too controversial."

Politico stated that while John McCain did not emerge victorious from the 2008 election, "his Bud Light–drinking, talk-show–appearing, insouciantly Twittering 24-year-old daughter" did." Speaking at the 2009 Log Cabin Republican Convention, McCain said there was "a war brewing in the Republican Party" between the past and the future, and that "most of the old school Republicans are scared shitless of that future."

Statements such as these led news reports and commentators including Rachel Maddow and Kathleen Parker to conclude that McCain had the same "maverick gene" as her father.

In 2009, she became a contributing writer for The Daily Beast.

McCain began writing for The Daily Beast in January 2009.

In March 2009, McCain wrote an article for The Daily Beast entitled "My Beef With Ann Coulter."

In this article, McCain questioned why Republicans support Coulter, calling her "offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing".

While Coulter did not respond, conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham challenged McCain's article by comparing her to a "valley girl."

Ingraham also mocked McCain: "Ok, I was really hoping that I was going to get that role in The Real World, but then I realized that, well, they don't like plus-sized models."

McCain responded to Ingraham in another article for The Daily Beast entitled "Quit Talking About My Weight, Laura Ingraham": "Instead of intellectually debating our ideological differences about the future of the Republican Party, Ingraham resorted to making fun of my age and weight, in the fashion of the mean girls in high school".

In April 2009, McCain signed a six-figure book deal with Hyperion.

She described her aims in this way: "All I am trying to be is a young, cool Republican woman for other Republican women."

After U.S. Senator Arlen Specter left the Republican Party for the Democratic Party in April 2009, conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh asserted that many Republicans wished both McCain and her father would leave the Republican Party as well.

In response, McCain tweeted, "RED TIL I'M DEAD BABY!!! I love the Republican party enough to give it constructive criticism, I love my party and sure as hell not leavin'"!

On a May 2009 episode of the Colbert Report, McCain stated her support for sex education and criticized Bristol Palin's sexual abstinence campaign, saying it was "not realistic for this generation".

McCain also argued that the Republican Party "can be a party for a 24-year-old pro-sex woman. It can be."

After John McCain campaign fixture Joe the Plumber made some anti-gay remarks (saying he would not have "queers ... anywhere near my children") in mid-2009, Meghan McCain took aim at him, saying "Joe the Plumber—you can quote me—is a dumbass. He should stick to plumbing."

In September 2009 and February 2010, McCain had repeat stints as guest co-host of The View.

In September 2010, she appeared on the NPR news quiz show Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and won a prize for a listener.

McCain's campaign memoir, Dirty Sexy Politics, was published in September 2010.

In it, she expresses opinions about Sarah Palin and describes her relationship with McCain campaign staff.

From 2016 to 2017, she co-hosted the daytime talk show Outnumbered.

She joined the daytime talk show The View shortly thereafter, co-hosting it until 2021.

McCain became a columnist for the Daily Mail website following her departure from The View.

McCain is the eldest of the four children of Senator John McCain and Cindy McCain.