She Once Railed Against Trump. Now Ann Coulter’s All In
“The most wonderful 100 days in U.S. history. I can’t believe how great Trump is.”
During then-candidate Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign, the outspoken and often controversial conservative columnist and commentator Ann Coulter emerged as one of his most fervent supporters. In 2015, she was among the first to predict his victory in the 2016 election.
According to the Daily Mail, Coulter’s 2015 book Adios, America was widely credited with shaping Trump’s immigration policy agenda.
However, the relationship between Coulter and Trump began to unravel in 2017, largely due to her mounting frustration over his failure to deliver on key immigration promises—most notably, the construction of the U.S.–Mexico border wall, a cornerstone of his campaign.
In a 2019 interview with C-SPAN, she recounted a heated “screaming match” with Trump in the Oval Office in early 2017. “The moment he got most upset,” she said, “was when I told him, ‘You’re no different from Jeb exclamation point.’ Then he just lost it.”
Her anger escalated in September 2017, after Trump announced a deal with then-House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to preserve protections for DACA recipients—without securing funding for the wall.
When Trump appeared to walk back his pledge to shut down the government over border wall funding, the rupture between them became complete. She wrote an article titled, “Gutless President in Wall-Less Country” in which she lambasted Trump over his retreat.
In a Daily Caller podcast, she said, “This utterly unlikely and, at least for president, in many ways, a not particularly attractive presidential candidate beat the most qualified woman ever to run for the office, basically on one promise: the promise to build a wall and never backing down on that.”
She warned that Trump’s presidency was in danger of becoming a “joke” that “scammed the American people” if he failed to deliver on building the border wall. Coulter added that she wouldn’t support him in the 2020 election if he didn’t follow through.
“Why would you?” she said. “To make sure Ivanka and Jared can make money? That seems to be the main point of the presidency at this point.”
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!"
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) December 20, 2018
At various times, she has called Trump a “complete blithering idiot” and even a “disloyal actual retard.”
In February 2024, she responded to a social media post asking what Trump “needs to do … to help us take America back.” She suggested, “Maybe he could die?”
Maybe he could die? https://t.co/TQPi5Bx3XB
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) February 4, 2024
But as Trump’s second term approaches its 100-day milestone, Coulter has done a complete 180. In a post on X last week, she declared, “Trump 2 is AWESOME!”
Trump 2 is AWESOME!https://t.co/HeoqLpesUz
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) April 9, 2025
When asked during a Friday interview with C-SPAN how she would characterize Trump’s presidency so far, Coulter stunned viewers with her response: “The most wonderful 100 days in U.S. history. I can’t believe how great Trump is.”
Asked about her volte-face, she said she was “ecstatic the night he won. Then he hired Jared Kushner and Gary Cohn and turned the keys of the kingdom over to Wall Street. And it was basically, you know, Jeb Bush. So I gently encouraged him to go back to the great stuff he had campaigned on.”
Coulter then described her Oval Office showdown with Trump. “I wasn’t the first one to use the F-word, but, oh boy, did that fly. Because he wasn’t keeping his promises on trade, on anchor babies, and especially the wall, the wall, the wall.”
She noted that Republicans were actually lucky Trump lost in 2020, because the Left’s persecution of him “mad him mad.”
So term two, I’m getting everything I voted for. I mean even more. I can’t believe it. Every day, it’s things I didn’t even think of. Yes, the water pressure, the showers, the toilets, the going after the universities, the anchor baby executive order, which I understand as of yesterday will be going before the Supreme Court. I’m very happy about that.
Congress should pass a law to make it permanent, but hopefully the Supreme Court will rule the right way because I believe the law as I described in Adios America is absolutely clear on that, which I’m happy to elaborate on.
I’m glad to see Coulter back on the Trump train. I used to be a big fan—she’s clever, insightful, and undeniably witty. However, during his first term, I felt she was overly critical, particularly on issues that were largely outside of his control.
Trump made substantial efforts to secure funding for the border wall, which had been his signature issue. He proposed multiple budget deals, invoked national security concerns, and even initiated a partial government shutdown in late 2018 to force the issue. Yet, despite his persistence, meaningful progress was consistently obstructed. Legal challenges, partisan gridlock, and resistance from Congress all worked to derail the project, ultimately preventing the wall from being completed as originally promised.
Democrats in Congress argued publicly that the wall was both ineffective and emblematic of a divisive approach to immigration. But in reality, many saw mass illegal immigration as politically advantageous—each undocumented migrant representing, in their eyes, a potential future Democratic voter.
Complicating matters further, Trump faced opposition from within his own party. Then-House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose support for Trump was lukewarm at best and nonexistent at worst, repeatedly failed to advance the president’s border agenda. Ryan’s disdain for Trump would later become unmistakably clear, casting doubt on just how committed GOP leadership truly was to the president’s priorities.
After spending years denigrating Trump at every opportunity, it may take time for Coulter to regain the trust of many within his base.
That said, if given the choice, I’d far prefer to see her on Trump’s side than opposing him.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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Comments
True believers are always a problem.
Wishy washy people (aka flip floppers) are also always a problem,
A president has to be realistic, practical, and flexible. You need to walk a thin line to be successful.
Trump V1.0 signing the omnibus budget was his biggest mistake – it left him no leverage versus the Uniparty rino squishes.
In some important ways 2.0 is a very different man. A better man.
On another topic someone made a comment that Trump losing in 2020 was a good thing because it made him mad. That is very evident now.
Ann can run back to her Penthouse boyfriend or Billy Boy boyfriend. I tire of her.
When Ann turned on President Trump, she did something even worse, She stopped being funny. So she’s back on his side now?
I don’t care. The question is, is she funny again?
Don’t trust her.
With a picture of a guy we mistakenly (according to Trump) sent to ES — which doesn’t look great, let’s face it, although I’m glad we won in court over it — her saying she’s so happy, looks like sarcasm.
Maybe Coulter is so braindead she doesn’t realize it. Or more likely not, she’s setting herself up as a “swing vote” on Trump.
She’s not a swing vote for me. She’s not credible anyway. Nice to have her onboard, now she can shut her yap and move toward the back of the Trump train.
“…if given the choice, I’d far prefer to see her on Trump’s side than opposing him.”
Maybe she could just go away?
She is true to immigration.
She was very honest in her assessment that Trump failed on that account.
She is very honest in her assessment that Trump 2.0 is delivering.
Too bad the country had to turn into a 3rd world hell hole under Biden before we could get a president that would deliver.
Coulter’s gripes with Trump 1.0 were just as valid as the ones gun owners had and still have.
His campaign promise that gun confiscation was “never going to happen as long as I’m President of the United States, that I can tell you,” was broken, by himself personally, in a totally unforced error, with the bump-stock ban via EO, only declared unconstitutional within the past year.
Another campaign promise was that “I will get rid of gun-free zones on schools, and—you have to—and on military bases, My first day, it gets signed, okay? My first day. There’s no more gun-free zones.” Well, nine years later, there are still gun-free zones.
Trump 2.0 instructed Pam Bondi to “examine all orders, regulations, guidance, plans, international agreements, and other actions of executive departments and agencies” and determine if any of them violate the Second Amendment.” He gave her a 30-day deadline to produce. It’s been 74 days, and she doesn’t seem to care, and neither does he. How hard can it be to find stuff Joe did to hamper gun ownership?
I have to say Trump is delivering on a lot more stuff this time around than last time. But my primary affinity group is already deep into fool-me-twice territory.
I think he played the long game on bump stocks, intentionally or otherwise. After that incident in Las Vegas, Congress was getting ready to redefine bump stocks as machine guns, something they had authority to do. By ordering the ATF to unconstitutionally redefine bump stocks as machine guns, Trump both headed off a Congressional ban that would have been much harder to undo as well as set the ATF up to get slapped down by the Supreme Court. The result is that we have bump stocks again. Far better than what Clinton or Harris would have done.
Maybe so. And also, I’d rather let people have machine guns than bump stocks. A machine gun is much more controllable, fit for purpose, doesn’t tend to drift. What I really don’t want is someone spraying bullets uncontrolled.
Another quality article from Elizabeth Stauffer; thank you!
Curiously, she has no sense of humor, so has never been able to read Trump. Lack of sense of humor shows up mostly in an inability to do self-deprecation and so makes her an awful guest. A side effect is no abilitity to do self-reflecton.
She pretends to do a sense of humor with a fake laugh, but that’s all it is.
But she likes political reality sometimes. On abortion:
I think you’re clearly right This – abortion is really hurting Republicans. I don’t think you can blame all Republicans for this. I’m glad it was overturned by the Supreme Court, I think. I’m a pro-life zealot, I think it was disgusting to call that a Constitutional right But it has been sent back to the states, that’s all we ever wanted, And guess what pro-lifers? We’re getting slaughtered. There have been seven direct to the people votes. And the tiniest restriction on abortion loses overwhelmingly. In Montana, in Kentucky, Kansas, states that Trump won by 20 points and it isn’t Republicans per se, I think pushing this, it is these pro-life zealots. who just – they don’t care, I’m going to be pure, and did you see my write-up in the Catholic Insight magazine? And you know, you guys, you’re like the corporate Republicans who will not give up on their cheap labor. We have to tell them, “We can give you some things, but we can’t give you everything or we’re just gonna lose.”
https://youtu.be/j9v0Qpjl-K0?t=549
And now it looks like Trump is with her on immigration and it might work.
I think she’s wrong on immigration being a cheap labor thing though. You only make out with cheap labor if you’re the only one doing it. Otherwise the cost savings get competed away and go to the consumer, not the employer.
she was correct and djt is proving her so
as he NOW is doing what we wanted done in the 1st term
Well, for some of you. Trump still hasn’t done positive thing-one for the firearms community that stood behind him, twice… other than indirectly through some (not all) of his Supreme Court appointments. I know you don’t like hearing this, but our sense of betrayal is justified. DOJ is still actively prosecuting Biden anti-gun cases that should have been vacated months ago.
Nice try, toots; you throw your career into the toilet and become less consequential than Rosie O’D, and now you kiss the ring and think America will give you a pass on your misdeeds and asinine analyses of yesteryear?
Ummm, no. Perhaps Drudge will let you post your vitriolic poison over there.