Thursday night, National Review’s Charles Cooke joined author of Adios America!, Ann Coulter, on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.
The exchange is particularly interesting because it perfectly illustrates the deep divide in the conservative ranks over Trump’s candidacy.
The segment begins with Coulter and Hannity exchanging their favorite Trump insults of the day.
“He’s a funny insulter, but he’s more than that,” Coulter said. “I mean, he’s clearly right about the Mexican wall thing. This is part of what’s appealing about him. Not only is he the only one seriously talking about immigration and the only one I think saying, he’ll believably build a wall while the rest of them are coming up with nonsense excuses.”
Before turning the conversation over to Cooke, Hannity said, “You know, I might say it a little differently than Donald because the bottom line is — Mexico has no problem at all with people crossing our border. They’re doing nothing to help us, nothing to assist us. So in many ways, it takes away some of their problems, poor people, other issues that they may have. Some of their population coming here has been good for them, we give them aid money. And I think Donald Trump’s right. You withhold the aid money, you put in a tariff, they’re going to get more concerned about it. Makes sense to me.”
“I have to say I’m astonished by the collective insanity that seems to have marked the conservative movement over this man,” said Cooke as Hannity interrupted. “Donald Trump who has put forth no plan whatsoever except to pretend that Mexico is going to pay for wall…” and then Hannity interrupted again.
“I think the objections are that you have a man in a Republican debate who praised single-payer. You have a man still talking about funding Planned Parenthood, A man who has flip-flopped perhaps on the wealth tax and gun control. A man who in any other circumstances would have been laughed at for the primary. If you look back to when Mitt Romney was running, flip-flops that were not remotely as substantive as Donald Trump’s…” continued Cooke before being interrupted yet again.
Cooke persisted, managing to put Coulter on the flustered defense — a rarity for her.
“He’s making it up as he goes along and we’re all falling for it for some reason,” said Cooke.
Follow Kemberlee Kaye on Twitter @kemberleekaye
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