Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Bernie Sanders Defends Ann Coulter’s Right To Speak

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter got some surprising backing over the weekend from Bernie Sanders, the ultra liberal Democratic senator whose views are almost diametrically opposed to hers.

He came out to her defense after students threatened to disrupt Coulter’s planned speech at the University of California Berkley.

“Obviously Ann Coulter’s outrageous ― to my mind, off the wall,” Sanders told the Huffington Post. “But you know, people have a right to give their two cents-worth, give a speech, without fear of violence and intimidation.”

Coulter was invited to speak at Berkley by the college Republican club, but facing threats from students to stage protests outside and inside the hall, campus authorities asked to move her speech to a later date and to the early afternoon.

Sanders made clear he does not believe that disruption was the appropriate way to counter Coulter’s conservative message. “What are you afraid of ― her ideas? Ask her the hard questions,” Sanders said. “Confront her intellectually. Booing people down, or intimidating people, or shutting down events, I don’t think that that works in any way.”

Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.