Exclusive–Ann Coulter: ‘The Most Deleterious Force for America and for Conservatism Has Been Fox News Leading People Astray’

“The most deleterious force for America and for conservatism has been Fox News leading people astray,” conservative author Ann Coulter told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview last Thursday following her lecture at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin.

When asked if there is a future for populist conservative media on television, Coulter said, “We’d all be better off if TV went under altogether.”

“Everyone on TV, as we found out briefly this week, they’re just the pretty faces for whatever the plutocrat behind the screen wants,” Coulter said.

She was referring to an incident on November 9, when Fox News host Neil Cavuto cut away from live footage of White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany speaking during a Trump campaign press conference. McEnany was discussing alleged voter fraud during the presidential election.  

“I saw, live, Cavuto cut away from Kayleigh McEnany. That was so shocking,” Coulter said.

“And, except that I didn’t want to admit to anyone that even on a commercial break from both MSNBC and CNN, I was watching Fox News, I would’ve tweeted about it myself. I go up to my Twitter feed, that’s all anyone is tweeting about,” she recalled.

“So, I guess the primetime hosts, they and the corporate management [at Fox News], probably figured out, ‘We can’t do this or it’s over’ — even for the declining days of cable news,” Coulter said of the network’s post-election coverage of Trump.

“I don’t think I’ve met anyone under the age of 60 who watches cables news. So, I’m not sure there’s that much of a future, anyway,” she added.

“As other people have pointed out, you could kill your cable subscription altogether and just be on Twitter because, if you ever do watch these shows, it’s … [content] that was [broken] three days ago on Twitter. I have friends who watch Fox News and they’ll call me with, like, ‘breaking news,’ and I’m constantly telling them, ‘I tweeted that yesterday,'” Coulter said.

“I really hope the whole thing collapses, because … I think, the most deleterious force for America and for conservatism has been Fox News leading people astray,” she opined.

“As you will recall throughout 2016, well, I wasn’t allowed on Fox News then because I supported Trump, and they were anti-Trump. And then, when he [Trump] switched – we got the big bait-and-switch, from all of his [campaign] promises to whatever Jared [Kushner] wanted – then I wasn’t allowed on Fox News. I guess because I wasn’t willing to fellate him [Trump] every night as he broke his promises. But for whatever the reason is, whomever you think you like on Fox News, check my Twitter feed that day. See if you haven’t seen it there first,” Coulter advised.

Even as Americans have become increasingly reliant on social media sites for their news, Big Tech’s left-wing censors have actively throttled conservatives’ voices during the Trump presidency, including President Trump himself.

Breitbart News asked Coulter if a populist movement can survive Big Tech censorship with Silicon Valley’s preferred candidate Joe Biden in the White House. A large number of Big Tech executives are expected to join Biden’s transition team, according to a recent report. Is there a viable social media future for conservative voices?

“This is another thing that makes me laugh about Trump’s loss,” said Coulter who, just a few hours earlier, told a socially distanced audience of 97 people at UT Austin that America needs “Trumpism without Trump” four years from now.

“His supporters were thrown off [social media], deplatformed, suppressed immediately throughout his administration. Breitbart was crushed. From 20 million readers a day [to] YouTube starts taking down their videos. Facebook is taking down their stories, letting other people rip off Breitbart stories,” she noted.

“You know, whatever you think of them – I don’t care, I believe in free speech – Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, [all were] totally deplatformed. And did Trump ever lift a finger to help them? Oh, now I remember. No, he did not. So, I can’t wait for Twitter to ban Trump on January 20,” Coulter said.

Twitter has confirmed that President Trump will lose special privileges protecting his Twitter account from being suspended or banned for alleged policy infractions if he leaves office. Twitter placed warnings on dozens of the president’s tweets in the hours and days immediately following the contested November 3 election, effectively muting his communication with the American public.

“As for what happens going forward, … it’s sort of unfortunate in a way, it’s not our fault, but it’s conservatives who are bearing the brunt of this tech monopoly right now,” Coulter said.

“Because, if you read the New York Times, they’re not wild about this sort of, you know, czar’s wealth either. … Articles by Kara Swisher a few years ago in the New York Times addressed the insane amount of power the tech companies have, and they realize it’s utterly unfair,” she noted.

“So, if leftists become honest again and don’t keep defining themselves as the ‘antonym’ to Trump, as [New York Times op-ed columnist] Frank Bruni described it [in 2019], I think this is something all freedom-loving people can agree on — that we shouldn’t be a world of Rollerball,” Coulter said, referring to the 1975 science fiction film by Norman Jewison. The movie depicts “three corporations running the world. It’s totally what’s happening right now,” she explained.

Coulter’s lecture at the University of Texas at Austin was on the issue of immigration, the subject of her bestselling 2015 book, Adios, America.

“Even before Trump came along, Republicans and Democrats have conspired to try to sneak an amnesty through Congress about a dozen times,” Coulter said.

She agreed with conservatives who are concerned that Republicans might work with their corporate donors and the Chamber of Commerce to push for another “Gang of Eight”-style amnesty deal, as they did in 2013.

“Yes, I am worried about that. Yes, they absolutely will,” she said, noting several previous attempts by bipartisan groups of senators to usher an amnesty plan through Congress that would provide a pathway to U.S. citizenship for tens of millions of illegal aliens.

“And it wasn’t Fox News, it wasn’t major talk radio hosts who alerted America, but somehow it would get out. It would be Howie Carr, or Joyce Kaufman, or Matt Drudge. Somehow America would find out and shut down the congressional switchboards,” the political commentator recalled.

“Hopefully the MAGA [supporters], the Trumpsters are organized enough that they will not be able to push it through. Hopefully some of these Republicans … have realized [that trying to pass amnesty is] not popular [with the base’s populist wing],” Coulter said.

The author added that she hopes Republicans understand that in order to speak to the populist base they must strive to “protect American workers [and] protect American culture.”