Ann Coulter speaks onstage during Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center (Getty)
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter has deleted a social media post in which she mocked governor Tim Walz’s son after facing a substantial backlash.
The post came after Walz’s son Gus was filmed at the Democratic National Convention earlier this week crying with pride during his father’s speech accepting the party’s vice presidential nomination and calling out, “That’s my dad.”
Coulter shared a news article about the moment alongside a photo of him crying with the caption: “Talk about weird…”
It seems that Coulter was referring to Walz’s previous description of Republicans and Donald Trump in particular as “weird people.”
Criticism against Coulter mounted as people noted that Gus is neurodivergent, with Walz previously telling People Magazine that he has “a non-verbal learning disorder in addition to an anxiety disorder, and ADHD.”
A former staffer under the Obama administration commented underneath Coulter’s post, saying: “I can see why a child loving their parents would feel foreign to you.”
Shannon Watts, who founded two gun safety groups, said in response to Coulter: “I am neurodivergent. We’re not weird, we’re wonderful. And we’re your family, friends, and fellow Americans.”
A former Republican strategist, Rick Wilson, also referenced the controversy. He said: “Ann Coulter will die alone, and forensic pathologists will discover her withered corpse is nothing but Marlboro reds and box wine.”
The intense backlash appears to have prompted Coulter to remove the post.
Other Ann Coulter controversies
This is far from the first time Coulter has been involved in controversy or received a significant backlash as a result of her comments.
She was previously accused of anti-semitism in 2007 when she said that the U.S is a Christian nation and that she would want Jews to be “perfected” by converting them to Christianity.
Her comments were condemned by the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the National Jewish Democratic Council.
Coulter also tweeted what the Anti-Defamation League called “ugly, spiteful, and anti-semitic” comments in 2015 following a Republican presidential primary debate in which multiple candidates referred to Israel several times throughout the evening.
She said: “How many f***ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?”
Following the accusation of anti-semitism, she tweeted: “I like the Jews, I like foetuses, I like Reagan. Didn’t need to hear applause lines about them all night.”
Coulter was accused of plagiarism
Coulter was also accused of plagiarism following the publication of her 1998 book High Crimes and Misdemeanours: The Case Against Bill Clinton when columnist Michael Chapman claimed that several passages in her book were taken from a supplement he wrote for the journal Human Events in 1997.
She was later accused of plagiarism for her book Godless as well, finding that several sections were taken from a Planned Parenthood pamphlet and from an 1999 article from the Portland Press.
The publisher of Godless, the Crown Publishing Group, issued a statement denying the claims, saying that it had reviewed the “the allegations of plagiarism” in her book and “found them to be as trivial and meritless as they are irresponsible.”
Coulter came under fire for a “xenophobic” tirade against Republican Nikki Haley
Back in 2023, when the former governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley joined the Presidential race, Coulter made several offensive comments about Haley.
In an appearance on the The Mark Simone Show, Coulter asked Haley: “Why don’t you go back to your own country?”
Haley was born in the U.S to Indian immigrant parents.
Coulter then went on to make disparaging comments about India as a whole, saying: “Her candidacy did remind me that I need to immigrate to India so I can demand they start taking down parts of their history. What’s with the worshipping of the cows? They’re all starving over there. Did you know they have a rat temple, where they worship rats?”
Coulter also said Haley was a “bimbo” and a “preposterous creature” and criticised Haley for advocating the removal of the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse in the wake of a 2015 shooting at a church in Charleston.
“This is my country, lady. I’m not an American Indian, and I don’t like them taking down all the monuments,” she said.
Coulter made similar comments towards another Republican presidential candidate in 2023.
Coulter said that an exchange between Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy was “Hindu business”.
Additionally, Coulter said she would not vote for Ramaswamy because he’s Indian during an appearance on his podcast.
She said: “There is a core national identity that is the identity of the WASP and that doesn’t mean we can’t take anyone else in, a Sri Lankan, or a Japanese, or an Indian, but the core around which the nation’s values are formed is the WASP.”