Meghan McCain Is Aghast That Former Sheriff Joe Arpaio Is Running For The Senate From Arizona

The View tackled the subject of controversial fringe candidates on Thursday’s broadcast, such as islamophobe Jan Morgan, who is running for governor of Arkansas; Rep. Steve Alford (R-KS), who has some questionable thoughts about African-Americans and marijuana; and of course, controversial former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has announced his 2018 candidacy for Senate.

On the plus side, Meghan McCain admits that the likelihood of these extremists actually winning is slim — using Roy Moore’s failed Senate bid as an example — which she says is “fantastic” for Democrats. However, when Sunny Hostin pointed out that Donald Trump was also kind of a fringe candidate who is now in the White House, McCain took exception.

“I actually take great umbrage that Sheriff Joe and Trump are in any way the same,” McCain retorted. She then read off a laundry list (that albeit barely cracks the surface) of atrocities Arpaio committed during the 24 years he held the position, which include forcing a woman to give birth in shackles, withholding resources for investigations in sex crimes, depriving inmates of food while making them watch the Food Network, and burning a dog to death (and then laughing as the owners cried), among other things. Hostin later went on to refer the influx of fringe candidates as “the Trump effect.”

“Trump winning the presidency has lowered the bar so far that people like Joe Arpaio think I’ve got a shot at representing the people of Arizona if Trump won,” she said, pointing out that there are currently three Republicans running for office with criminal records. These are strange, scary times.

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