Columnist and TV personality Meghan McCain at the 8th annual Algemeiner J100 gala. Photo: Patrick McMullan Company

Former The View host Meghan McCain, daughter of the late US Senator John McCain, spoke of her pro-Israel upbringing Tuesday in an interview ahead of The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual “J100” gala.

“I’ve always called myself a Zionist. I grew up in a family that defined themselves as Zionist, it didn’t even occur to me that was something controversial anymore,” she told reporters. “I said it on The View, the show I was working on, and it had such an intense reaction from people, both positive and negative, that I just thought, this is clearly a space that has changed.”

McCain received The Algemeiner’s “Warrior for Truth” award on Tuesday. In her remarks that evening, she credited former US Senator Joe Lieberman, a longtime friend of her late father, for nurturing her interest in Israel.

The TV personality was recognized in part for raising awareness over a spate of antisemitic hate crimes that followed the Israel-Hamas conflict in May — a development she said Tuesday she had found “appalling.”

“We’ve had such a sea change over the past few years talking about racism, homophobia, all forms of prejudice and oppression, and for some reason, it’s a lot harder for people to speak out when it comes to antisemitism,” she argued in the interview.

“When you see the shift happening culturally in the radical far-right and the radical far-left, and some of the insanity that has seeped from the bowels of society into the more mainstream — I think it’s important for not just Jews, but Jews and allies to speak out and be very defiant and strong and direct in your advocacy.”

Watch the full interview below: