The Truth About Meghan McCain's Marriage

On November 17, 2017, The View co-host Meghan McCain announced that she had "been engaged for a while" to Ben Domenech, the co-founder of the conservative online magazine, The Federalist. "Wait for people who love strong women. The men who love strong independent women, they're out there. Don't settle for less. Don't settle for anything else," she advised other marriage hopefuls on her popular daytime talk show. 

Speaking with the End Well Foundation in December 2019, McCain recalled how she became engaged at the Mayo Clinic immediately after learning about her father Sen. John McCain's cancer brain diagnosis. "We went in [to the Mayo Clinic] and they said he had something called glioblastoma and they showed us a graph of the mortality rate and what it means and I just, I reacted like a child," she revealed, adding, "I started screaming 'my dad's never gonna blanking see me get married. And he's never going to see me have kids' and my now husband said 'Yes, he will.' Which is not how you picture getting engaged, but all right."

That's a very unique engagement story, but what do we know about their marriage? What does P.F. Chang's have to do with it? How did a t-shirt cause a media cycle? Why did her husband come for Seth Meyers? Let's find out the truth about Meghan McCain's marriage.

BREAKING: Meghan McCain is happy her husband is conservative. During an appearance on The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special in late 2019, McCain heaped praise on Ben Domenech and claimed conservative men do it better. "When we went out the first time, I was like, this is a totally different vibe and it's way better. I tell women, 'Conservative men have better family values, and they take dating and family and marriage more seriously,'" McCain told the conservative pundit.

She also claimed that the only way she would want to get married and start a family would be with a man who shared her political ideology. Domenech fits that bill. "I think if you're serious, which I was when I met my husband, about getting married and having kids and wanting to go to the next phase, I just found ... finally dating a conservative man was the one. He took it seriously," she explained.

However, back in 2012, when McCain was reportedly more outspoken LGBT rights, Domenech seemingly had no intention of dating her, much less marrying her, commenting "DO NOT WANT" on an article suggesting how to score a date with The View co-host. "Nobody is more surprised by the man I ended up marrying than me," McCain explained to Shapiro, adding, "I'm deeply in love and he's the best decision I've ever made, but he's the most conservative man I've ever met.

Meghan McCain and BenDomenech always knew they wanted to get married, but her father's stage 4 brain cancer made them set a date to ensure he was there. On July 17, 2017, the late Sen. John McCain had an "aggressive tumor" removed, per CNN, but even with treatment, the survival rate for his particular type of cancer is "around 14 months." So, Meghan and Ben knew they had to act.

"We pushed everything up," Meghan said (via People). "My dad is doing really well right now, but it's a deeply unpredictable cancer. You're really just living scan to scan. I wanted to make sure that he was — that we were all — there. Why wait?" Ben added: "This brought into focus how important it was for Meghan to have her dad see her get married and to have that happen while he was still fully there and fully able to participate. This was something that she needed."

The wedding took place on the McCain family ranch in Arizona in November of that year with John McCain walking his daughter down the aisle. Sadly, the Vietnam War hero passed away less than a year later from cancer (via The New York Times).

During a 2018 episode of The View, Meghan McCain said that Donald Trump accepting the Republican nomination was the impetus for her to marry Ben Domenech. Why? They were both sad and found comfort in each other.

"I have this theory, because I got together with my husband very quickly, which I never do," she told her fellow co-hosts, adding, "We moved in very quickly. I have this theory that Trump's America makes everything more intense and heightened, because we're always talking about the threat of nuclear war, and we want to be nurtured by each other." She continued: "For real, I would not have gotten together with my husband if Trump didn't become the nominee and weren't running for president. A hundred percent."

McCain explained that while she was crying, Domenech showed up with some takeout, making her realize he was the one. "At the [Republican National Convention] when he accepted the nomination, I cried and cried and cried to him in an SUV back to our hotel room, and then he got me P.F. Chang's and I thought, 'Maybe I can marry this guy,'" she said.

In an emotional op-ed in The New York Times published on July 19, 2019, Meghan McCain got candid about suffering a miscarriage early in her marriage. She explained her photoshoot with the publication a week prior "should have been a moment of triumph," but during the shoot, she already knew she was losing the pregnancy. "I look back at those pictures now, and I see a woman hiding her shock and sorrow," she wrote, adding, "My body told me in all the ways women are familiar with. It told me in the same ways that I was miscarrying. The confirmation from my doctor came the day of that photoshoot, at the worst possible time."

McCain wrote that speaking about miscarriages is a "cultural taboo" for women in our society, and explained that both the life of the child and the grief of the loss are both real and valid. "They deserve to be spoken of, shared and mourned. These children, shockingly small, shockingly helpless, entirely the work of our love and our humanity, are children," The View host shared.

However, she takes comfort in one simple fact: "When my father passed, I took refuge in the hope that someday we would be united in the hereafter. I still imagine that moment, even as I trust that a loving God will see it happen. Now I imagine it a bit differently. There is my father — and he is holding his granddaughter in his hands."

After her miscarriage in 2019, Meghan McCain announced on March 22, 2020, that she and Ben Domenech were welcoming their first child. "My husband Ben and I have been blessed to find out I'm pregnant," McCain wrote in her announcement on Instagram. "Although this isn't how I expected to announce my pregnancy, both we and our families are excited to share the news with you all."

Due to this news, she and her doctors decided it was best for the baby for her to contribute to The View from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. "I consulted with my doctors and they advised me that for the safety of our baby and myself, I should be extra vigilant about limiting the amount of people we come in contact with," she wrote, adding, "I'm fortunate that my employer, ABC, has allowed me and my co-hosts to work remotely. I am indebted to our producers and crew."

Her family, of course, was "excited by the news, according to a source who spoke with People. "But right now, she's finding strength at her role at The View. She knows her most important responsibility is to inform Americans to stay home and minimize the spread of the coronavirus," the source told the publication.

Meghan McCain offered some rare insight into her pregnancy in a September 2020 interview with ET. "I'm, like, eight-and-a-half months almost. I'm very close," she said. "I feel like how all women feel. I'm just feeling slow and big and tired and your back hurts." However, McCain had no plans to slow down despite being extremely pregnant. She added, "I'm going to push through as long as I can. I'm far from the first pregnant woman that's been on the show, so everybody's been really kind and really amenable."

Although she would be welcoming her first child, McCain admitted that her pregnancy was "the least interesting thing I talk about all day" with everything going with the election and COVID-19. She added, "It's sort of been a blessing and a curse. I have been so distracted with the news. I think about my pregnancy like any woman does, but I've also been thinking a lot about what's happening in the world. We've had really interesting discussions."

2020 will go down as one most tumultuous years in recent memory and McCain is trying to survive the best she can. "This isn't my favorite time in the world in general," she said. "I think everybody feels that no matter who you are if you have kids, don't have kids, everyone I know is going through a challenging time just because we're in a time of such social change, social unrest, divisiveness, the election."

Divorce rates in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic skyrocketed according to one study, jumping 34% from 2019. Turns out being isolated with your significant other for months is more akin to The Shining than a rom-com. Meghan McCain feels that pain.

During a May 2020 episode of The View, McCain opened up about her quarantine experience with hubby Ben Domenech. "Being in quarantine with your husband or significant other or being in quarantine with anyone, at least for me, has been like marriage on acid," said McCain (via People). "You're spending 24-7 with just one person. And so, it's like, I knew all these things about Ben but, it's like, everything is heightened at like, the tenth degree."

However, she is happy that they can bond over being conservative. "I will say that all I am glad about is that I married someone I want to talk to about the news all the time and I'm always interested in what he wants to say," she explained, adding, "Because it's become the baseline for our relationship right now. If we had nothing to talk about, which I've certainly dated men like that before, I would have certainly jumped out a window at this point."

As California's "top cop," Kamala Harris saw her controversial prosecutorial record as the state's Attorney General in the spotlight in 2020's Democratic primary, and again when she was announced as Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's VP pick. To capitalize on that, Ben Domenech started selling t-shirts that read "Kamala is a Cop" on his website, The Federalist (via AOL). People thought that was Meghan McCain's fault for some reason.

Joan Walsh, a political analyst for CNN, tweeted out her disgust over the merch. "But wait, @MeghanMcCain's husband @bdomenech is selling these t-shirts? Are they doing it because they support Kamala? Or they're just being trolls and gremlins? Whoa, I'm gonna really look into this because...it seems super dirty but please please tell me if I'm wrong about it," she wrote.

McCain didn't appreciate being dragged into the t-shirt discourse. "The liberal media is so bizarrely obsessed by my marriage in a way that truly is only projected onto conservative couples. Do you really think your snarky tweet will impact my marriage? We went through my father's brain cancer together. Bring your political issues up WITH HIM!" she replied. In another tweet, McCain added: "I know this is a hard concept for some but we are not the same person, believe different things and love and respect each other's differences. This is why I have no patience or place with third wave modern feminism."

One day after a man with anti-Semitic views entered the Chabad of Poway synagogue in San Diego with a semi-automatic rifle and killed one person and injuring three others, Meghan McCain appeared on This Week With George Stephanopoulos and attempted to shift blame to Rep. Ilhan Omar for the attack. "When we're having conversations about anti-Semitism, we should be looking at the most extreme on both sides," McCain said, before mentioning Omar's now-deleted, seemingly anti-semitic tweets, for which she later apologized.  

McCain then appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers and let's just say it got tense. After Meyers pointed out that Congresswoman apologized and was receiving death threats, McCain doubled down on her attack. "I stand by every single thing I've said, and if that makes me unpopular in this room or in front of you, so be it," she said.

Well, McCain's husband watched the exchange and was not a fan. "I see that @sethmeyers, the untalented piece of sh*t who only has his job because he regularly gargled Lorne Michaels' b***s, went after my wife tonight with his idiotic anti-Semitic bulls**t," Domenech wrote in a now-deleted tweet (via The Daily Beast). He later apologized for his outburst, tweeting: "I love my wife. I apologize for rage tweeting about how Seth Meyers treated her. I don't like him, I think he's a hack, but I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry to anyone I offended."

On Sept. 28, 2020, Meghan McCain and Ben Domenech welcomed a baby girl, Liberty Sage, People reports. A rep for the talk show co-host said the new mom and baby "are happy and healthy." While McCain nor her husband have made a public announcement, as of this writing, The View's Twitter account confirmed the happy news. Meanwhile, McCain's co-hosts congratulated the new parents on the air, with Whoopi Goldberg saying, "Hot off the presses, there's a new baby in town!" She added, "It's not an easy thing to do ... So, we're just really excited and thrilled."

However, if you're waiting to see photos of their new bundle of joy any time soon, don't hold your breath. McCain's past experiences with social media have understandably made her hesitant to share. "People keep asking and requesting I show pics & details of my pregnancy," she tweeted back in May. "Given that people write on photos I put up of my family they are glad my Dad got cancer and he's in hell, I thought I would leave my unborn child out of the social media cesspool as much as is possible."

Captioning an image of the tweet on Instagram, McCain shared in part, "Ben and I have made the conscious decision to guard our (growing) families privacy as much as is possible. I believe children have a right to privacy and hope you will all understand as we navigate this as much as possible going forward without sacrificing our comfort or safety."