While in today’s political climate, it often appears that there is no line that cannot be crossed, conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter, the 53-year-old author of Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama and Adios, America: The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole , may have actually crossed one with a Twitter rant during Wednesday’s Republican debate — a rant that appeared to contain a blatantly anti-Semitic remark.
How many f—ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015
For those who cannot read the embedded tweet, Coulter wrote, “How many f—ing Jews do these people think there are in the United States?” While she apparently did not believe the reference to Jews would be considered offensive, she was careful to self-censor her own expletive. The tweet received an immediate response , not only from ordinary readers, including self-described conservatives, but from celebrities as well, with film actor and comedian Seth Rogen chiming in, calling Coulter “a horrible f*****g idiot.”
. @AnnCoulter One more thing to thank the Jewish people for – your career is over. — Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) September 17, 2015
The Anti-Defamation League condemned Coulter’s tweet as “ugly, spiteful and borderline anti-Semitic,” while ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt followed up with a statement of his own.
“While most of America has rightly tuned out Ann Coulter’s hyperbolic and hateful rhetoric, her irresponsible tweets during the Republican presidential candidate’s debate are truly a new low and must be called out… All decent Americans should reject Ms. Coulter’s rhetoric as simply beyond the pale.”
Coulter, for her part, defended her comment on her Twitter account the next day, calling her comment “Pro-Semitic.”
I like the Jews, I like fetuses, I like Reagan. Didn’t need to hear applause lines about them all night. https://t.co/4guFehK0CM
— Ann Coulter (@AnnCoulter) September 17, 2015
She also said that her remark about “f*****g Jews” was “not about Jewish people; it’s about Republican panderers.”
Coulter was enraged by the fact that when asked what America will “look like after you’re president,” four of the candidates, Coulter said, mentioned Israel in their responses .
She also added, “I like the Jews.”
But the Twitter outburst was not the first time that Ann Coulter has made remarks perceived as anti-Semitic. In a 2007 radio interview, she declared that Jewish people must convert to Christianity because “Jews need to be perfected.”
Coulter’s tweet went out to her 665,000 followers.
In answer to the original question posed by Ann Coulter, there are approximately 6.8 million Jewish citizens of the United States.
[Image: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images]