Ann Coulter has said the immigrant children who’ve been seen crying as they’re separated from their parents at the border are ‘child actors’.
The conservative commentator appeared on a Fox News panel on Sunday night where she weighed in on the media’s recent coverage of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance immigration policy, which has led to the separation of 2,000 children from their parents in just six weeks.
‘These child actors weeping and crying on all the other networks 24/7 right now — do not fall for it, Mr President,’ she warned Trump. ‘I get very nervous about the president getting his news from TV.’
Coulter’s comment has been met with widespread outrage with social media users calling her ‘nasty’ and ‘heartless’ for suggesting that the children are faking their anguish.
Ann Coulter called immigrant children who’ve been shown crying as they’re ripped from their parents at the border ‘child actors’ while appearing on a Fox News panel Sunday
Under the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy, 2,000 children have been separated from their parents after trying to cross the border in just six weeks. One of the most widely-shared images shows a two-year-old Honduran asylum seeker crying as her mother is detained
Coulter’s comment was part of a 90-second rant in which she claimed that children were being used as anchors to bring more relatives into the country illegally.
The other panelists, Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle, who is reportedly dating Donald Trump Jr, and former Republican Rep Jason Chaffetz, appeared to have agreed with her remarks until she called children ‘child actors’, at which point host Steve Hilton tried to correct her.
Coulter talked over his interjections and defended her comments saying that they came from ‘not a conservative publication’ – The New Yorker.
The article had supposedly described how ‘these kids are being coached, they’re given scripts to read by liberals’, adding: ‘Don’t fall for the actor children.’
When Hilton finally manages to get a word in, he just says: ‘Thank you for getting that off your chest.’
During the segment, which also featured Fox News personality Kimberly Guilfoyle and former Republican Rep Jason Chaffetz, host Steve Hilton attempted to correct Coulter’s tactless comment but was unable to get a word in
Twitter users have been much less receptive to Coulter’s claims, calling her ‘nasty’, ‘bitter’ and ‘heartless’ as well as a ‘deranged cultist’.
Jaclyn Corin, whose March For Our Lives cohort was accused of being ‘crisis actors’ following the shooting in Parkland, Florida, wrote: ‘Ann Coulter, sitting on her throne of privilege, says that asylum-seeking kids are ‘child actors. Seems to be a pretty common term thrown around lately…’
‘It is revolting to see a person dismiss someone else’s pain as ‘fake.’ I sincerely hope Ann finds her morals one day.’
Another user, Steve Redman, tweeted: ‘Ann Coulter says asylum-seeking kids are child actors. Nobody would ever accuse you of acting like a human Ann.
‘Maybe you should adopt one of these kids. Oh wait, never mind, these kids have been traumatized enough. Let’s hope they don’t grow up as bitter and nasty as you.’
A woman under the username @Alina_IV wrote: ‘So, everytime the news reports something you deranged cultists don’t like, its “fake news”.
‘Everytime children (who don’t fit your political agenda) cry in despair, you say they’re actors.’
Several people were more brief with their criticisms, including one woman who tweeted: ‘Does anyone have a cage for Ann Coulter?’ and best-selling author Christopher Rice who tweeted: ‘Ann Coulter is a human actor.’
Coulter’s comment has been met with widespread outrage with social media users calling her ‘heartless’ and ‘cruel’ for suggesting that the children are faking their anguish
Jaclyn Corin, whose March For Our Lives cohort was accused of being ‘crisis actors’ following the shooting in Parkland, Florida, also responded to Coulter’s comments
A woman under the username @Alina_IV tweeted calling Coulter a ‘deranged cultist’
Several people also brought up the time that Coulter made a scene on a Delta flight because she was removed from the seat she prebooked.
Several people were more brief with their criticisms, including one woman who wrote: ‘Does anyone have a cage for Ann Coulter?’
Best-selling author Christopher Rice tweeted: ‘Ann Coulter is a human actor’
As the clip gained traction on social media several journalists called for Coulter to share the specific New Yorker article she had referred to.
She responded by tweeting a link to an article published in 2011, which documents how immigrants are encouraged to exaggerate the risk they face in their home countries in order to gain asylum.
‘If you had 3 functioning brain cells you’d be able to find 1 article on how phony asylum cases are,’ she wrote in the tweet on Monday.
The man who wrote the 2011 article, Suketu Mehta, tweeted back at Coulter saying: ‘If you had 3 functioning brain cells, @AnnCoulter, you wouldn’t be mentioning my New Yorker article about asylum to support your racist positions.
‘It’s not about child actors, it’s about narratives demanded of adults by a broken asylum system.’
Mehta later told Buzzfeed: ‘I was really shocked to see she is using my New Yorker piece, which has no child actors, no liberals toting scripts to be read by child actors.
‘I don’t know if she knows how to read, but she clearly hasn’t read my New Yorker article.
‘Either she lied or she’s truly illiterate.’
Coulter claimed her source was an article in The New Yorker, possibly one published in 2011 by writer Suketu Mehta, who responded to Coulter’s comments on Twitter Monday afternoon