Conservative commentator Ann Coulter on Wednesday predicted that President Trump would “fold” on his demand for funding for his proposed southern border wall, a demand which has led to the current partial government shutdown.
“For one thing, he actually did shut down the government — though don’t worry, he’ll fold in the end,” Coulter said while speaking on the “Mark Simone Show” on 710 WOR in New York.
Coulter’s comments come two weeks after she argued that Trump’s presidency would be a “joke” if he gave in to Democrats by signing a government spending bill that didn’t include funding for the wall along the Mexican border.
“Trump will just have been a joke presidency who scammed the American people, amused the populists for a while, but he’ll have no legacy whatsoever,” she said in a podcast interview with The Daily Caller.
Last month, Congress had been set to pass a stopgap funding measure the keep the government, before Trump said he would refuse to sign a funding bill that didn’t include $5 billion for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Democrats have opposed the request and have offered $1.3 billion for border security.
The failure to reach an agreement resulted in a government shutdown that started on Dec. 22 and has persisted into its second week.
Coulter, who in 2016 published the book “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!,” pointed out that her criticism of Trump led him to unfollowing her on Twitter, adding that “I don’t mind him quitting as a follower, I mind him quitting as a leader.”
She also praised Matt Drudge for his role in getting Trump not to budge on his demands for a border wall.
“The one person who deserves the most credit of all, for going ballistic when Trump caved on wall funding right before Christmas, which I think we got him to take back, is Matt Drudge,” she argued, referring to the founder of the conservative news aggregation site The Drudge Report.
“He was the one who put it up as the siren.”
The Drudge Report ran the headline “Trump in Retreat” as Democrats and Republicans deliberated on a spending bill in December, according to The Week.
Trump stood by his demand for a border wall on Wednesday before a meeting with congressional leaders, saying that the U.S. “needs a physical barrier.”