Meghan McCain Goes to War with 'Education of Brett Kavanaugh' Authors Over NYT Correction

Meghan McCain has a serious bone to pick with The New York Times reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, who authored "The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation."

During Tuesday's episode of "The View," the conservative commentator didn't hold back asking hard questions when talking with the two journalists, who received widespread backlash after publishing an article for The Times excerpted from their book. Pogrebin, Kelly and the publication were slammed after key details were left out of the report containing a third allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

"I'm going to try and make this as clear as possible," McCain said. "The New York Times ran an excerpt of your book over the weekend in the opinion section that included a new allegation of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh but you guys left out a key detail of the alleged victim who you name in the book but we're not going to name on the show, quote, 'refused to discuss the incident' and quote 'several of her friends do not recall it happening.'"

"She doesn't," the reporters confirmed.

"I think this is sort of ground zero for why so many people mistrust the media, why the New York Times is nicknamed the 'New York Slime' by many people in conservative circles," McCain continued. "The Times actually had to run an editor's note following up. How did this vital fact get left out?"

Kelly first pointed out that there was "no desire to withhold important information from our readers" as all of the information is in the book. She added, "The essay is an adaptation of the book that, of course, we had to edit for length and clarity."

The reporter expressed how the focus of the Times story was about Deborah Ramirez, one of Kavanaugh's accusers and that the new allegation was included because it was "germane" to the subject. Kelly called the exclusion of the "key detail" -- where the alleged victim told her friends she doesn't recall the event -- an "oversight" in the editing process.

"During the editing process there was an oversight and this key detail, about the fact that the woman herself has told friends she doesn't remember it, and has not wanted to talk about it, got cut," Kelly said. "It was an oversight and the Times adjusted it and we're very sorry that it happened."

McCain then asked why Kelly and Pogrebin put the woman's name in the book if she didn't want to talk about the alleged assault.

"Her name is in the book because we think it's relevant information and we think it's accurate and we know that her name was provided to members of the Senate and the FBI by a witness named Max Stier, who is a good governance activist in Washington," Kelly replied. "This name is in documents, it's in the letter."

Co-host Abby Huntsman then chimed in and asked why Stier's ties to the Clintons were left out of the article.

"I understand, it's relevant background; in this case, it was a very short mention and we only talked in brief terms about what he's doing right now," Kelly said. "We didn't see all of that context to be necessary."

McCain continued to grill the authors and asked why they seemed to have thrown the Times opinion board "under the bus" when they blamed the editing process as the reason behind the error.

"We're a team at The New York Times," Kelly said. "We have processes in place. We wrote this, it was edited, there was back-and-forth as there always is, it's kind of a team effort, frankly, to make sure that everybody's comfortable with the final product and there was just an oversight here."

Pogrebin added, "As soon as we realized [the error], we corrected it and they wrote an editor's note and they restored it."

"Didn't you realize it was because Molly Hemingway made the correction?" McCain asked, referencing the conservative commentator who called out the Times over the article. "I just want to know, frankly, you understand why so many people think this is a hatchet job?"

Pogrebin answered the question by explaining the reason she and Kelly wrote the book in the first place.

"We have found that we corroborate these stories of Deborah Ramirez and Christine Blasey Ford, but in the 36 years since, Brett Kavanaugh has been a better man," she explained. "Everybody can kind of demonize [him] and everyone can kind of demonize these victims and the reality is somewhere in between, considerably more complicated, considerably more nuanced and that's what we are trying to portray in this book."

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