Why Out-of-Touch Donors Love Rubio
The bestselling author Ann Coulter sat down with The American Conservative to talk about America’s warmongering top diplomat.
So, who you got in 2028: J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio? That’s the question conservatives across the country have been asking each other in recent months.
Last year, Vance ’28 had seemed inevitable, but no longer. “Trump voters like Marco Rubio More and More,” blared the headline of a recent piece in the Atlantic. “And J.D. Vance less and less,” noted the subheadline.
But at least one prominent conservative with a reputation for uncommon foresight still sees Vance as the future of the GOP—and Rubio as a defective robot programmed by out-of-touch donors. In a scathing Spectator article published last week, Ann Coulter explained why she’s “Never Rubio.” And in an interview with The American Conservative, she explained why she’s on Team Vance.
A partial transcript of the interview is below (and you can watch the whole thing here). The bulk of the conversation was about Rubio, Vance, and the Iran war—which Coulter opposes—but I began by asking about Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who lost his Republican primary on Tuesday.
President Trump had endorsed Rep. Thomas Massie’s opponent, Ed Gallrein, whom nobody had heard of until five minutes ago. How have you interpreted the sometimes brutal Trump–Massie conflict? And what’s your take on Gallrein’s victory?
I don’t think there’s ever been another president, another politician, another breathing human being that I have such a long “con” list for but also a pretty good “pro” list. And oh my gosh, that is Trump. I mean, this Massie thing is the worst of Trump for various reasons.
I can’t blame Trump for this, but there is a Trump cult. I was listening yesterday to the journalist Robert Draper covering the Massie–Gallrein campaign from Kentucky.
[Laughs]I’m sorry, I have to laugh when I mention Gallrein because this district went from having not only the smartest member of Congress, but probably the smartest human being living in the greater Washington, DC area, to the dumbest member of Congress. So congratulations, Fourth District!
But there were tape recordings of these Massie rallies, and a guy stood up and said he opposed Massie. And Massie was magnificent. He talked to him for 15 minutes. He was cheerful. He was nice. But the guy’s main argument was, “Um, yeah, OK, I didn’t vote for war, but Trump knows more than any of us. He knows stuff you don’t know. He knows everything. Why don’t you just defer to him?”
You have to listen to it. This is a cult. This is absolutely a cult.
And I don’t like that. Republicans, conservatives, we’re the party of ideas. We’re the smart ones! I love a lot of things Trump is doing, but this is Moonie stuff. I don’t like that he’s brought that out in people on my side of the aisle, and I hope it goes away with Trump.
The opposition to Massie was just absolutely batty. I posted a piece on my Substack just responding to some of the lies.
What are some of the lies?
One hilarious one is: He’s never passed a bill.
Who has gotten a bill passed this term? Oh yes, I remember: Thomas Massie did. The most important, most beloved bill that has ever been passed in the history of the Republic and that was mightily resisted by Trump and the Republican Party. And that is the bill requiring the release of the Epstein files.
In the end, voted for by every member of Congress and signed into law by President Trump himself. Considering that’s one of the main arguments against Massie, you’d think they’d remember that bill.
This is very depressing. And the one upside I’d say is, my gosh, it took a lot of money to take this guy out.
Your Spectator piece explains why you’re “Never Rubio.” I’d be curious to hear why you felt the need to to write it. I suspect it’s because more people are talking about Rubio as the 2028 Republican nominee. The aura of inevitability around Vance seems to have waned.
You’ve seen it all over. For one thing, Trump was polling his donors. And as I mentioned briefly in the article, donors have the worst political judgment. And they’re all, “Oh, Rubio, Rubio, we love him!”
There’s a big article in the Atlantic. It’s Rubio! Vance’s star is fading! Nobody likes him! Well, the Atlantic and the woman who wrote this article have been the most fanatical, blood-coming-from-their-fangs anti-Trumpers from the moment he came down the escalator.
One Christmas Eve, I went to a big Palm Beach dinner party. I’m the only non-billionaire at the table. And as with many dinner parties in Palm Beach, it ends in women crying, children running from the table—huge political argument.
I came home from that. I had just sent my book Adios, America to the publisher, but I typed up a chapter that is now titled, “I wrote this chapter when I realized how stupid rich people are.” They have the worst political judgment.
I think the donors are smitten with anyone who goes around throwing around terms like “Sharia” and “the Sunni” and “the Caliphate” and this and the other thing, because they are so separated from the concerns of ordinary people. And it makes both the half-wits like Rubio and his donors feel like big intellectual global strategists, striding the globe, rearranging things. But every time they rearrange things, it’s an unmitigated disaster.
I get the sense that you like Vance much more than Rubio. Can you explain why, given that he doesn’t have a long political history, doesn’t have a political identity that pre-exists Trump’s presidency, except that he was a writer of Hillbilly Elegy back when he was a Never Trumper?
I give him a break because he had just gotten out of Yale Law School. That’s like getting out of Chinese-style brainwashing. So come on, give that a rest. Obviously he changed his mind. I believe he genuinely changed his mind because it just fits with his entire character.
His entire life is caring about poor people in Appalachia, growing up with that, seeing the drug problem, seeing that these poor white Americans have just been completely ignored by the elites for, I don’t know, half a century.
So I think it’s deeply in his heart. And two other things I really like about Vance is first, well, who else? We’ve got to pick somebody, and I don’t see anybody else I like as much. And secondly, as with Massie, Vance is really, really smart. And I think it’s really important to have smart people running our party, to have smart people at the top.
I will admit, Rubio’s smooth, he’s slick when he stands up and gives these little speeches and no one’s challenging him. Yeah, Rubio gives a good speech, but remember, Chris Christie destroyed him in that New Hampshire debate, because all Rubio can do is give these little speeches.
It was like a moment in The Stepford Wives. There was a glitch in the computer and he repeated the exact same riff four times with Christie standing there saying, “Look, he’s doing it again, he’s doing it again!” And he couldn’t stop. So no, not quick on his feet.
I don’t mean to be a snob about this, but Rubio’s educational attainments are not as impressive as those of Jasmine Crockett, whereas Vance came from absolutely nothing, did not have the advantage of being able to apply as a Hispanic. Yes, Cubans don’t get the full affirmative action that other Hispanics do, but they still get affirmative action—and I’m telling you, no white kid from Appalachia gets one leg up. And what Vance has accomplished is very impressive.
Editor’s note: This article has been edited for conciseness and readability. You can watch the full conversation here.
The post Why Out-of-Touch Donors Love Rubio appeared first on The American Conservative.
