It happens quickly but it does happen, at 2:55 of the Daily Beast’s clip below. May I quote myself here? April 8th, the last time there was a moment of gut-wrenching awkwardness between Meg and Joy:

What do you do if you’re a producer of this show? Do you try to broker peace between Behar and McCain, now that the cringe factor to their interactions has reached near-fatal levels? Or do you encourage it, relishing the drama it’s adding to the panel exchanges? On the one hand, this petty sniping between Meg and Joy is detracting from the substantive discussions.

On the other hand, it’s way more engrossing than the substantive discussions. What “View” viewer in her right mind would want to miss an hour of this show, knowing that that might be the day Behar turns to McCain or vice versa and says, “Listen, b*tch…”?

Today was the day, with the only surprise being that it took two months. Now we wait for the next unconvincing tweet from Meg assuring the world that she and Joy truly like and respect each other, all visible evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Actually, according to the Beast, she already covered that base on today’s show:

After commercial, the table addressed the previous segment’s tension, with McCain claiming that she consistently says “bitch” all the time in an endearing way. Furthermore, she insisted that she and Behar enjoy fighting with each other and she wants “everyone to stop being so precious about our relationship because it’s almost 2020, and women can debate on TV in a spirited way without it being personal.”

“And I know this is a big shock,” she added. “We get along backstage.”

It’s … curious that Whoopi and the other panelists haven’t received their own “endearing” B-bomb during any panel discussions. Maybe McCain likes Joy more than them, huh? “B” is for “bestie.”

The interesting part of this clip isn’t the profanity, it’s Meg kinda sorta finally severing the John McCain/Lindsey Graham bond due to Graham’s endless Trump sycophancy. Literally one of the last people in the GOP whom you would have expected circa 2015 to become Trump’s most loyal apologist was Graham, a man who ran against him in the primaries and referred to him more than once as a kook who couldn’t be trusted with power. That was true of other Republican candidates too (including Marco Rubio, who was also seen beaming at last night’s rally), but the difference between Graham and Rubio is that only one of them was a close McCain confidant. And, for better or worse, fairly or not, McCain and Trump have come to be seen as the two poles between which the GOP in 2019 operates. Lindsey Graham has somehow made the journey from one pole all the way to the other, from McCain sidekick to Trump sidekick. I used to think that was transactional on his part, partly to shore up his chances of reelection in South Carolina and partly to maintain some influence over Trump’s thinking on foreign policy, but I’m less sure now. His Trump apologetics seem in no way reluctant, as they sometimes do with Rubio. Certainly he could have skipped last night’s rally and still won reelection easily. He was there because he wanted to be — despite the fact that Trump has repeatedly dogged his old friend John in the months since McCain died.

It’s weird enough for me, having followed McCain’s and his “Batman and Robin” act for so many years, to watch Graham embrace Trump after all that. Imagine how weird it must be for McCain’s kid.