She was an outspoken conservative pundit promoting Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016, who often introduced him at campaign rallies. She wrote a book called, “In Trump We Trust.”
In the Rose Garden today, Trump was asked about her.
“Ann Coulter?
I don’t know her.”
Jaws dropped. For a few seconds reporters had to remember they were at a presidential press conference and not in reality TV show.
It was another remarkable moment in a presidency full of remarkable moments.
Asked whether conservative media personalities influenced his policy on building a border wall, Trump denied commentators like Coulter and Fox News’ Sean Hannity pushed him to declare a national emergency to get a physical barrier on the southern border.
The question came after Fox network figures and conservative commentators prodded the president to declare an emergency over the past few months and railed against him for ending the government shutdown without over $5 billion for the wall.
But Trump insisted today that the emergency declaration he had just issued was his own doing.
“They don’t decide policy. In fact, if I went opposite — they have somebody, Ann Coulter, I don’t know her. I hardly know her. I haven’t spoken to her in way over a year. The press loved saying ‘Ann Coulter.’ Probably if I did speak to her, she’d be really nice. I just don’t have the time to speak to her,” Trump said.
Coulter was an early, vocal Trump supporter who eventually condemned the president over his slow progress on a border wall.
The conservative author mocked the president in December when the White House announced it would accept a funding bill without securing over $5 billion for the wall.
“The chant wasn’t ‘SIGN A BILL WITH B.S. PROMISES ABOUT “BORDER SECURITY” AT SOME POINT IN THE FUTURE, GUARANTEED TO FAIL!’ It was ‘BUILD A WALL!'” Coulter tweeted at the time.
Shortly after, Trump refused to sign government funding legislation, sending the country into the longest government shutdown in U.S. history over funding for a wall.
The president eventually agreed to sign wall-free funding legislation after 35 days, ending the shutdown and again stoking the ire of conservative commentators, who pushed him to declare a national emergency.
Trump declared that national emergency today, a step likely to be quickly tied up by legal challenges, while also signing a massive, largely bipartisan funding bill that contains no money for a border wall but will avert a second government shutdown.
Coulter responded to Trump on Twitter:
THANK YOU, Mr. President for admitting that your total capitulation on campaign promises has nothing to do with me. https://t.co/f8Yff96nfl
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 15, 2019
Coulter has complained that Trump is yielding to pressures to provide eventual ‘amnesty’ to illegal immigrants.
She said he is ‘just fooling the rubes with a national emergency,’ which will be contested in court.
Coulter also blasted him on KABC radio.
She said ‘the country is over’ and was appreciative that Trump ‘relieved me any responsibility for what he’s been doing’ by putting distance between them.
‘Forget the fact that he’s digging his own grave,’ Coulter said. ‘The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot,’ she said.