WASHINGTON – Author and conservative commentator Ann Coulter told PJ Media that Republican congressional and gubernatorial candidates “would be idiots” to distance themselves from President Trump’s agenda heading into the midterm elections.
Coulter, who has a new book out titled Resistance Is Futile!: How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind, said Trump would be “more popular” among the electorate if he would fulfill his campaign promise to “build the wall” as a way to curb illegal immigrants, drugs, and human trafficking.
“They would be idiots to tread carefully. No, Trump is very popular. He would be more popular if he would build the wall but he is still particularly popular compared to your average Republican. I mean who knows, there might be a state where he lost but still, what you need in a midterm election is enthusiasm. That’s generally why the party out of power wins because the party in power gets lazy, complacent, falls asleep, doesn’t think much is at stake; ‘oh, everything is great. Our guy is in office,’” she said during the interview.
“Republicans have the House and the Senate, their base is in a white-hot rage, so how do you gin up our base? Like many things you need the base not just for their votes alone but they go out and they talk to people and they’re excited. I don’t want to hear about the soccer moms. Women love Trump. Black women especially like Trump,” she added.
Citing the 2016 election results as an example, Coulter said GOP candidates should align themselves with Trump. “It worked in the 2016 election and we had the entire media throwing everything they had at Trump,” she said.
Coulter said she is “very happy to see” Trump is scheduled to speak at more campaign rallies throughout September and October but she recognizes the Democrats might still win the majority in the House despite Trump’s efforts. Coulter predicted that Trump would win in a “landslide” in 2020 if Democrats take back the House.
“If what is expected to happen happens and the Democrats take a majority in the House, they are not going to take the Senate so let them tire themselves out with a lot of stupid investigations. I mean, they will all be competing for airtime,” she said. “MSNBC would have to start another network to cover all of the hearings looking to every little thing the Trump administration is doing and then Trump will win in a big landslide in 2020.”
Rapper Kanye West, who supports Trump, recently said the president wants to be “cool” in the hip-hop community again, referencing the time when rappers used to name him in songs as a symbol of success.
“I feel that [Trump] cares about the way black people feel about him, and he would like for black people to like him like they did when he was cool in the rap songs and all this,” West said last week.
Reacting to West’s statement, Coulter said to win the African American vote, Trump must follow through on his campaign promise to enforce the nation’s immigration laws. Coulter referenced the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Act, sponsored by former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) in 1965, saying that African Americans would be “better off” today if that bill never became law.
“But for that, think of how much better off black Americans would be today and that’s what Trump promised – that’s going to, for once, not to care about the donors but care about the low wage workers who want jobs but can’t get them because they are being underbid by low-wage immigrants who are happy to work for $2 per hour, so yeah go back to your immigration stuff. How about building the wall?” she told PJM.
Coulter argued that the GOP should stop listening to donors.
“If Congress wants to prevent itself from flipping then they ought to see what the popular ideas are and I thought Trump demonstrated that quite clearly throughout the 2016 campaign. I thought they would all be wetting their pants and staring at the ceiling at night unable to sleep, that is the Republicans in Congress, realizing ‘oh my gosh what the donors have been making us do is so unpopular. What we have to do is stop listening to the donors and start doing popular stuff,’” she said.
“But apparently none of them had that realization so that’s kind of rough. I don’t know what we can do; maybe shock treatments. I don’t know if there’s any evidence that you can increase the IQ of a Republican member of Congress but it would definitely be worth a try,” she added.
Coulter added that building the wall would create much-needed U.S. construction jobs.
“You would have every black person in America employed and so many – I mean, not just black people, so many American men in the construction,” she said.
She called on Trump and the GOP to fully fund the border wall system before the end of the year.
“One of the many brilliant things about his campaign, besides his issues, is all of his major issues don’t require the participation of Congress,” she said. “They are all executive functions — number one, building the wall, doesn’t need Congress. Number two, renegotiating trade deals, the president can go ahead and do that on his own. Not starting any pointless wars – that’s also the job of the commander in chief.”
Given that Republicans often criticized former President Obama for overusing executive actions, Coulter was asked if more executive orders would open Trump up to criticism. In response, Coulter said Obama was “straying out of his lane and doing things that were purely legislative” like DACA and DAPA.
During the interview, Coulter also weighed in on the controversy surrounding Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), Republican candidate for governor, for saying “monkey it up” when describing his opposition to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum.
“Oh, they’re pathetic, it’s ridiculous,” she said of the Democrats upset by his statement.
“Let’s build off the success we’ve had on Gov. [Rick] Scott,” DeSantis said. “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state.”
Coulter said “monkey it up” is a well-known phrase.
“You’re spending way too much time analyzing the well-known English phrase to monkey something up. In fact, so well-known, Chuck Berry has a song about it: ‘Too Much Monkey Business.’ No, this is insane,” she said.
Fox News distanced itself from DeSantis’ comments after the interview.
“We do not condone this language and wanted to make our viewers aware that he has since clarified his statement,” said Fox News anchor Sandra Smith.
In response, Coulter said, “That’s brilliant – that’s good because you know what? The best thing is when you get falsely accused of something, you totally want to grovel for the left because that has totally worked historically.”
Coulter described DeSantis as fantastic.
“They ought to start running that fantastic ad where he’s teaching his kid how to build a wall – that’s adorable,” she said.
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