Cindy McCain calls GOP and Fox News fury over Dr Seuss ‘ridiculous’

Ms McCain said ‘we can no longer have our leaders work with fear and anger and hate’

Cindy McCain, the widow of Arizona Senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, called the reaction of Republicans and Fox News to some Dr Suess books being pulled from the shelves "ridiculous".

Speaking to MSNBC, Ms McCain added that the Republican Party has to stop using "fear and anger and hate" to achieve their objectives.

MSNBC anchor Stephanie Rule said that if you watched Fox News "any day last week," you weren't going to hear anything about domestic terrorism in the wake of the Capitol riot or anything about what's in President Biden's $1.9tn Covid-19 relief bill, adding that instead, you were "hearing about cancel culture and Dr Seuss, a narrative that doesn’t make much sense. Does it make sense to Republican voters? Why is this happening?” Ms Ruhle asked Ms McCain.

She responded: “There’s a great deal of frustration. What was occurring on Fox or any of the other news stations with regards to Dr Seuss and the rest of it is really rather ridiculous at a time we are facing what has occurred regarding the pandemic, regarding the economy. People are out of work. We need help."

No Republicans have so far voted for Mr Biden's Covid relief bill.

“The polling numbers represent that 59% of Republicans want this. They want the two parties to work together to solve the problems of our country. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen with this latest vote," Ms McCain said referring to the Covid relief bill that passed the senate with zero Republican votes after a tie-breaker by Vice President Kamala Harris.

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President Biden has said that the relief bill is bipartisan because Republican voters want it to pass, regardless if no congressional Republicans will vote for it.

Ms McCain said: "I think there’s certainly a division between what the voters want and what our elected officials want. We need to hold them accountable, most importantly. The strongest thing we can do is vote and just as you saw what happened in this last election, and change the leadership if indeed we believe that they’re not doing what’s good for the country.”

Ms McCain added that the Republican Party is starting to “either find its way or dissolve”.

Mr McCain's closest friend in the Senate, South Carolinian Lindsey Graham, recently compared the electoral failure of the 2012 and 2008 Republican presidential nominees to the 2016 election success of Donald Trump while speaking to Axios: "Mitt Romney didn't do it. John McCain didn't do it. There's something about Trump. There's a dark side and there's some magic there."

Responding to Mr Graham's comments, Ms McCain said: “Right now, there’s too much anger and hate, and that’s been generated from the top. I just don’t believe that our party can survive by appealing to the dark side of humanity. I’ve seen it too often. I began this quest in my life with Ronald Reagan, and I just don’t see how... we got to where we’re at, but now that we’re here, we can no longer have our leaders work with fear and anger and hate.”