(Photo Credit: CNN)
Economist Robert Reich suggested to Ann Coulter on Sunday that the fight to defend free speech was not limited to her campaign against the college campuses which have banned her citing security reasons. During a discussion on ABC's This Week about Coulter's battle with University of California, Berkeley, host Jonathan Karl wondered whether President Donald Trump's war on media outlets also set a dangerous precedent for free speech.
“You know what, Jonathan? I really don't know what to say,” the pundit opined. “There's this entire conspiracy about how the president is waging a war on liberal, freedom-of-speech-loving media, and this is all making him look like a despicable tyrant and dictator. In reality, I would argue that he hasn't made a single bad or wrongful decision since he assumed the presidency. If you ask me, the man is a wizard when it comes to PR and I believe his long experience as a businessman is the reason for that. With Donald Trump, it's a love or hate thing; there's just no middle.”
She continued, “That being said, you kind of have to wonder why he's being persecuted so much. If you take a look at the headlines on any given day, you'll see at least two or three newspapers or internet portals that are saying something negative about the man. So, I think anyone with at least an ounce of a brain can see through the charade orchestrated by the so-called ‘liberal media' about how President Trump is waging a media war on them. What's really going on is, they're the ones waging war on him, not the other way around.”
The conservative, sharp-tongued author then proceeded to argue how Trump's media war is being “faked by the media to justify calling me a media whore.” “The beautiful thing about being alive today, Jonathan, is the fact that if you're a public figure – and even if you're not - everything you say stays recorded somewhere one way or another,” Coulter said. “And when you have an entire industry dedicated to warping the consciousness of the American people, it's very tricky to deny having said or done something that goes against your mission or creed.”
“On one hand, here I am, trying to call things what they really are and make sure people have all of the information disclosed before acting and making decisions, and all of a sudden, I get labeled a media whore because someone, in their pitiful excuse for an office and with an even more pitiful excuse for a job, decides they want to get better ratings for their crap newspaper,” she added. “But, therein lies the problem: they've just insulted a public figure, which goes against the freedom of speech. As you know, there's a very fine line between freedom of speech and insulting someone.”
“What's the solution? Well, in their scrawny little minds, they're trying so hard to come up with a solution to justify the fact that they've crossed the line. Because, accountability can be a bitch sometimes, you know?” the pundit opined. “So, what do they come up with? They come up with this huge conspiracy about how President Trump is waging a war on free speech, because he keeps getting mad at the media outlets that keep insulting him and many other conservatives. In reality, Trump's so-called ‘media war' is a lie designed by the same people who are using it to justify calling me a ‘media whore.'”
“Ultimately, the reason why media that's on Obama's and Hillary's payroll is faking Trump's war against them is to make it look like Donald Trump is actually against freedom of speech. So, if he's against freedom of speech, why should anyone else - and especially me, alongside other conservatives that see through their lies and are a pain in the butt because of it - deserve it? It's beautifully designed, you got to hand it to them. But, it's not impossible to see through,” Coulter concluded.