On The View Monday, Meghan McCain said that journalist E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault allegation against President Donald Trump should be taken seriously — but nonetheless with a grain of salt.
Carroll claims in a new book that the then-real estate mogul cornered her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room and raped her in the 1990s. Trump responded that he had “no idea” who Carroll was despite a photograph showing Trump together with Carroll and his then-wife Ivana in the late-1980s.
While speaking on the subject during the daytime television show’s “Hot Topics” segment, McCain said that because she is a “politician’s daughter,” she has gotten used to being lied to.
“I always ask questions, and it’s not that I don’t believe women. … It is something that brings on so much cultural shame and it’s so horrific. It’s one of the most horrific things you could ever think of happening as a woman,” McCain said on the show.
McCain wouldn’t say definitively if she believed Carroll or not but that an investigation should proceed.
“I know this probably makes me unpopular in this space, but I believe that something happened, and I believe — but she has been accusing a lot of other very prominent famous men of sexual assault, and I believe of rape, and again, it’s like I was scared to even come out here and say that, but I would prefer to be honest with the audience and I would like to open up the investigation,” McCain said. “I would like to know more information.”
McCain compared Carroll’s situation to similar accusations leveled by actress Asia Argento against Harvey Weinstein and by Christine Blasey Ford against Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh during the latter’s Senate confirmation hearings last fall.
The View co-host Sunny Hostin countered McCain by saying that very few rape allegations turn out to be false.
“Most women do not lie about rape because people don’t believe them, because they get raked over the coals,” Hostin said. “I mean, the prevalence of false reporting is between 2 percent and 10 percent.”
Responded McCain: “I 100 percent came out here assuming I’m going to be raked over the coals, but I would rather be honest with this audience and with all of you than sit here and lie because it’s going to make my life easier in the media.”
In an interview with CNN detailing her accusations against the president, Carroll said that Trump asked her to put on a lingerie item, but at first believed he was joking. When they entered the dressing room together, Carroll said Trump then “banged [me] against the wall.” A physical altercation ensued in which she said Trump pinned her and forced himself upon her.
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