Conservative pundit Ann Coulter has denounced former President Donald Trump over his public safety record, claiming that Trump decided to “release all the criminals” following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.
During a PBD Podcast interview that was released on Thursday, Coulter praised Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s 2024 presidential election rival, for passing laws “where you can shoot looters” amid the “Black Lives Matter” protests, asserting that Florida offered a rare refuge to “feel safe” in 2020.
In contrast, Coulter argued, Trump’s accomplishments regarding crime prevention and maintaining public safety amounted to little more than sending out all-caps tweets reading “LAW AND ORDER.”
Coulter claimed that the former president was more focused on “releasing criminals” after signing the First Step Act, a 2018 criminal justice reform law that offers a path to early release for some nonviolent drug offenders.
“George Floyd, May 25th, 2020, changed the world,” Coulter said. “Suddenly we have to release all the criminals, among other things … One place you would have been safe in 2020 was in Florida. Thank you, Ron DeSantis, [for] passing law after law where you can shoot looters, anti-rioting laws.”
“What did Trump do? He sent out tweets in all caps, LAW AND ORDER,” she continued. “You know what he said in the first debate with [President] Joe Biden? … ‘You called them super-predators, I’m releasing people from prison.’ … He’s releasing criminals. You want to feel safe? Donald Trump ain’t your guy.”
Newsweek reached out for comment to Trump’s office via email on Thursday evening.
Coulter was once among Trump’s staunchest supporters, authoring the book In Trump We Trust: From More Awesome! in 2016. She has since had a dramatic falling out with the former president, becoming one of his fiercest Republican critics.
Trump has participated in an escalating war of words with Coulter for years, most recently referring to her as a “stone cold loser” and “unbearably crazy” in a pair of Truth Social posts last month.
Coulter responded to Trump with a fiery post on X, formerly Twitter, claiming that the ex-president had recently “begged” her to meet with him in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“Trump begged me to come to Bedminster this week, I said only if I could record a substack with him, but the GIGANTIC P**** is too afraid of me, so instead he did this,” Coulter wrote.
In August, Coulter described Trump as “a gigantic baby” who “can barely speak English,” while also praising DeSantis ahead of the first 2024 GOP primary debate, in which Trump declined to participate.
Trump referred to Coulter as a “wacky nut job” when her criticism of his failure to complete a U.S.-Mexico border wall was ramping up in 2019, insisting at the time that he was “winning at the border.”
