Ann Coulter said late Wednesday she was just asking questions.
Prior to an appearance Wednesday evening with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly, Coulter said in reference to pro-Israel remarks made during the second televised GOP primary debate, “How many f—ing Jews do these people think are in United States?”
The right-wing provocateur defended these and other questionable tweets Wednesday, explaining in her Fox interview that she was merely criticizing “pandering” by the GOP candidates.
“You want to take that back?” Kelly asked the author about her tweet.
“No,” Coulter responded, “I just tweeted the question – well, actually, I was tweeting all night when all the candidates were pandering, pandering, pandering. I wrote my column about it. They seem to be getting certain boxes: Have to mention Reagan, have to mention that they’re pro-life, have to mention Israel.”
“The entire Republican Party is pro-Reagan, pro-life, pro-Israel,” she added. “The last question was: After you’re president, how will America be better? And suddenly, we’re back to Israel again. It’s just this checking off of the boxes, and the virtues boxes and it’s one of the things I like about – in fact, I think they’re probably pandering … to evangelicals, um, not Jews. It’s just pandering, pandering, pandering, something we all agree on is not really separating the candidates.”
Kelly moved on immediately, failing to push Coulter to clarify similarly questionable tweets sent out Wednesday evening.
Prior to her “f–ing Jews” comment, Coulter said on Twitter, “Good grief! [Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee] is running for PM of Israel,” and “Cruz, Huckabee Rubio all mentioned ISRAEL in their response to: ‘What will AMERICA look like after you are president.'”
Immediately after asking about how many “f–king Jews” GOP candidates must think live in the United States, Coulter suggested that pro-Israel sentiments are probably little more than a ploy “to suck up to the Evangelicals.”
Coulter eventually added on Twitter after her appearance on Fox News, “I like the Jews, I like fetuses, I like Reagan. Didn’t need to hear applause lines about them all night.”
The controversy surrounding her tweets Wednesday evening is not unlike the time in 2013 when she said of Jewish voters in the United States, “As Reagan aide James Baker (allegedly) said of another Dem voting bloc sought by [Republicans]: ‘F*** the Jews; they don’t vote for us anyway.'”
