Conservative commentator Ann Coulter has said that Donald Trump will not back down from his demand for $5.7 billion to fund his promised southern border wall, as he is "dead in the water" if it does not get built.
Speaking to HBO's Vice News Tonight, Coulter said she backed the president during the ongoing government shutdown, as it means people are continuing to talk about immigration.
The current shutdown, already the longest in U.S. history, has resulted in hundreds of thousands of federal employees working without pay or furloughed. Coulter said the overall reason for the shutdown is more important than the workers' current situation during the stalled negotiations between Democratic leaders and the president.
"More Americans die from drug overdose every year than died in the entire course of the Vietnam War, and the vast majority of those drugs are being brought in because we have a wide open border," Coulter said. "I care more about that than I care about the Yosemite gift shop being open."
When asked why Trump is "digging his heels" over the issue, Coulter replied: "It is self-preservation because he is dead in the water if he does not build that wall. Dead, dead, dead."
Coulter argued that Trump might be responding to criticism that he pandered to "Wall Street and Manhattan elites" during his first two years as president by refusing to back down from the negotiations.
Coulter was a staunch supporter of Trump during his election campaign, but has increasingly criticized the president over his failure to act upon his promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
During the interview, Coulter said that Trump has "screwed up" during the first two years of his presidency by not building the wall, but now "with three seconds on the clock, he's finally throwing the ball."
Coulter criticized Trump for being the "worst negotiator God ever created" for his failure to reach an agreement with the Democrats to end the current shutdown. Coulter added that Trump's previous and often touted claims that he was a great businessman and negotiator "turns out [to] have been exaggerated."
Earlier this month, Coulter, author of the book In Trump We Trust, suggested that Trump would "fold" during the current border wall negotiations, adding that his failure to build his wall would result in the next president being a Democrat.
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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
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