Bernie Sanders Defends Ann Coulter’s Right To Speak

Senator Bernie Sanders led a group of Democratic leaders in criticizing Israel’s blockade of the Gaza. Image by getty images

By Nathan Guttman April 24, 2017

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

Nathan Guttman, staff writer, was the Forward’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the staff in 2006 after serving for five years as Washington correspondent for the Israeli dailies Haaretz and The Jerusalem Post. In Israel, he was the features editor for Ha’aretz and chief editor of Channel 1 TV evening news. He was born in Canada and grew up in Israel. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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