Tonight's Florida Primary: Ann Coulter weighs in

January 31, 2012

Writer

Ann Coulter called into the radio show today to discuss the Florida primary and what she expected to do down in the Sunshine State. What did she have to say? Read the full transcript of the interview below!

GLENN: Florida elections today and Ann Coulter is on the phone with us. Hello Ann.

COULTER: Hello Glenn Beck.

GLENN: What do you think is coming today.

COULTER: One thing I've noticed is the media seems to be encouraging raised expectations for Mitt Romney so if he wins by anything less than 15 points it will be declared a victory for Gingrich. And the upcoming caucuses if Romney loses a single one, wow, it's a Newt Gingrich bounce. I note that in that regard that an editorial is strongly encouraging these debates go on.

PAT: This Washington outsider Newt Gingrich is coming on so strongly right now with his brand new ideas that are complete separate from Washington. I love that about him. And I love the fact that the establishment, the Republican machinery is all behind Mitt Romney.

GLENN: There's really only one guy who can even make that claim, and even he is not an outsider, and it's Ron Paul. But at least

COULTER: Why wouldn't I say why isn't Romney the outsider.

GLENN: You're right.

COULTER: It isn't such a terrible thing. You do tend to choose politicians from politics. I think we saw in the choice of Republican candidates Herman Cain. Even when he was in right he was stuck for an answer. Yet and still don't go around calling yourself an outsider if you spent your entire life in Washington first as a congressman, and trading on your influence in Washington.

GLENN: So he's never had a real job.

COULTER: I guess there would be an assistant professor 30 years ago.

GLENN: I wouldn't call that a profession. He's a historian for Freddie and Fannie. There's the first line I cut. You need a historian. What is the hell is that?

COULTER: That was not a good answer.

STU: I find it amazing as they keep going to Gingrich as the antiestablishment guy. Here's a guy who voted for the Department of Education. And it's one thing and at least the fact that he was around to vote for the Department of Education's creation shows you

GLENN: Try this on for size. Here's a small government guy. Do you have the State Department audio. This is one of the most amazing pieces of audio I've heard from a Washington outsider that wants to return the power to the people.

COULTER: Hold every last

GLENN: Not that one. He sounds like the Taliban.

COULTER: Giving the conservative stress on the federalism as Rick Santorum has said if a state wants it can ban contraception. This focus on the federal government solutions is the federal government that created these problems and at least with a state it's easier for a state to modify. It's easier for states to see what other states have done, and how it worked out. You have more control over the officials you are electing to smaller area a town or governor or legislature. Which is why I find the comparison of Romney care, and Obama care so baffling other than it's generally the same subject area. And you can describe it to a politician's name to the word "care." One is constitutional, and one is unconstitutional.

GLENN: I would agree with you on that. Who thinks I don't care if it's a state or not, who thinks that they can actually fix it by having the state run it? That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

COULTER: I think that the big issue on Romney care there isn't much any governor can do. The problem with the healthcare was created by the federal government and it can only be fixed by the federal government by repealing stuff.

GLENN: By reducing the size of the federal government.

COULTER: Right, and in particular the federal law requires hospitals to treat all comers. And Massachusetts was spending $1 billion a year, $1 billion on uncompensated medical costs so they are

GLENN: Wait a minute. Let me play devil's advocate here. So you're going to let vagrants die on the streets.

COULTER: I'm not going to say that the taxpayers is on the hook when they wander in to sleep off a drunk.

GLENN: What if they're really sick.

COULTER: I think in an ideal world what I would do, I don't have to have tax incentives to tax us less to begin. That's the world we're living with. For the tough cases let's fine I don't care if the federal government is going to pay for the tough cases. The federal government is going to set up poor people's hospitals. At that point we can pay for with the amount of money we're paying for the Department of Education now. But you don't wreck the whole system to deal with the hard cases.

GLENN: I think you go back to what the Ben Franklin did. You have people like Jon Huntsman. He built the Huntsman cancer institute, and you have people that build hospitals, and they can partner with the states or with corporations or whatever, and they get tax incentives for.

COULTER: Charitable hospitals.

GLENN: Let's not put all of the Catholic hospitals out of business. That's a different idea. I've not heard this anywhere.

COULTER: We have to rethink the State Department, and I have to said inn crease its size by 50%. To be able to have a truly professional modern high technology State Department.

GLENN: How are you feeling about an increase of the size of the State Department by 50%?

COULTER: That is raging against the machine in my part. But he has this tendency to give precise numerical figures when he's talking about his head. You have to increase it by 50%. I remember during 2007, and 2008 every month he was giving a different prediction of 80% chance Hilary will be the next President. And next the month Hilary's chances have fallen to 25%. And 25.4% of women have been raped in college.

STU: There's a lot of the things in his speech pattern. I think that the fundamental will file for bankruptcy if Newt Gingrich doesn't win the nomination. It's like is or the to this guy. Everything is a fundamental something.

COULTER: Now I'm having all these words are being stripped from my vocabulary, and I hear them, and it gives me a problem.

GLENN: A fundamental rash.

COULTER: Because frankly.

GLENN: Let me ask you this. What is the deal with the Sarah Palin's endorsement of Newt Gingrich.

STU: She hasn't officially endorsed.

PAT: Basically to all intents and purposes she has endorsed.

GLENN: What's up with that?

COULTER: It may be a disagreement on whether you think it's a good thing for this rancorous primary to continue, and whether that makes it more or less likely to defeat Obama in the fall. We've had 20 debates. I think this primary is quite a bit a nastier than others I've seen. I think it's going to hurt whomever, and Romney the eventual nominee. And I don't think it's a good thing for the debates to go. The lead up to the "New York Times" let the debates go on.

GLENN: It's crazy. We're cannibalizing ourselves. I'm not getting any new information out of these debates. Is anybody else?

STU: It's enough.

GLENN: Enough. All that's happening. Let these debates go on. Now let's have a rule that they can't talk about each other. They can talk about what they will do, and compare it to the Democrats, and Barack Obama, and you can do that. But I don't need to have them taking each other apart anymore. It really bothers me.

COULTER: Yes.

GLENN: They sound like a bunch of third graders.

COULTER: I dispute the aphorism that which does not kill you makes you stronger. Really you could gouge your eye out, you could live. Does that make you stronger?

GLENN: I don't think if it's self inflicted. That's probably why it doesn't apply here. But maybe it's just me.

COULTER: That seems to be the argument. The one who baffles me the most I reject the cynical explanations for people coming out on the other side. We may disagree, and particularly in the case of and the one I have the Thomas Sole. I think there's not a ray of light in the difference in our opinions and I respect him, and I've been baffled by his columns in favor of Newt Gingrich. And he has I think it's today complaining that Romney is lying about or being deceptive. I don't think he uses the word lie. And Newt does. And the ethics complaint. Unquestionably Gingrich resigned. The ethics reprimand was a lighter sentence. That was a majority House of Representatives. They were trying to protect their leader. There were a lot of the honorable Republican including Porter Goff who was the head of the ethic committee who thought that a reprimand was deserved. It was two years later that Gingrich resigned in disgrace because he was having a long term affair in the middle of Republicans having an unmistakable argument between Democrats and Republicans and the Democrats being adultery, and sodomy.

GLENN: And sodomy.

STU: Obviously.

GLENN: Why haven't we had her on the every day of the show. Ann thank you very much, and we'll talk to you tomorrow when it's a huge huge disappointment because Romney didn't win by 80 points.

COULTER: That's. Good to talk to you.

Glenn: Pay attention to what the State Department's RADICAL reset is signaling

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For years, the U.S. State Department operated on inertia—an institution locked into a cycle of caution, consensus, and risk aversion.

Speeches were careful, strategies were diluted by committees, and action was often defined by what couldn’t be done. The language was always the same: "nuance," "complexity," "stakeholders." Rarely was it about results.

That has changed.

What’s come out of the State Department in the last hundred days is a complete departure—not just in tone, but in structure.

Under Secretary Rubio, the department isn’t just adjusting tactics. It’s undergoing a philosophical reset.

The most telling shift is this: the department is no longer preoccupied with managing decline or defending abstractions. It’s operating from the premise that U.S. foreign policy must serve actual national interests, not vague global norms or ideological missions.

Look at the key decisions. The Global Engagement Center—an office that claimed to combat disinformation but increasingly acted as an internal censorship tool—is gone. Not repurposed. Not renamed. Eliminated. Aid programs that masked themselves as diplomacy while undermining core U.S. positions have been cut. Contracts to NGOs with open hostility toward U.S. policy goals? Revoked.

This isn’t cosmetic. It’s structural.

The department’s reorganization is consolidating power downward—removing bureaucratic silos, emphasizing merit over ideology, and restoring clarity to diplomatic goals. This isn’t about optics. It’s about removing friction between strategy and implementation. On immigration and border enforcement, there’s now a foreign policy posture that treats visa privileges as exactly that—privileges, not entitlements. Visa holders who break laws or support terrorist groups lose their status. Period. No press conference required. Just enforcement.

Regional partnerships are now framed by expectations, not entanglements.

Countries that allow mass illegal migration into the U.S. are being held accountable. Agreements are being structured around reciprocity. When those agreements are ignored, consequences follow. China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, long treated as inevitable, has been directly challenged. Beijing’s role in Panama, particularly regarding the canal, has been dismantled through diplomacy backed by leverage, not lectures. That wasn’t done through press statements—it required statecraft, pressure, and the willingness to say no.

In Europe, there’s been a reframing of NATO obligations. Not as symbolic unity, but as measurable responsibility. The benchmark is no longer two percent. The conversation is now five. That changes the nature of the alliance. In Africa, the posture is shifting from dependency to commercial engagement. Trade, not aid. Access, not assistance. Diplomacy with terms, not with guilt.

The contrast is stark.

This isn’t a matter of tone or branding. This is a systemic shift away from a model that rewarded process over outcomes, toward one that is rediscovering the purpose of diplomacy: to secure advantage, resolve conflict, and protect national interests.

This recalibration will not be popular in foreign capitals used to ambiguity, or in institutions comfortable with drift. It’s also not universally admirable. It’s direct. It’s unambiguous. And it signals something rare in modern American foreign policy: conviction.

That alone is worth paying attention to.

Glenn: Why Memorial Day is not just another holiday

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They wore the uniform so you could live free. This holiday, ask yourself if you're living in a way that honors that sacrifice — or cheapens it.

Your son has been a Marine for what feels like an eternity. Only those who have watched their children deploy into war zones can truly understand why time seems to freeze in worry. What begins as concern turns to panic, then helplessness. You live suspended in a silent winter, where days blur and dread becomes your constant companion.

Then, in an instant, it happens. What you don’t know yet is that your child — your most precious gift — fell in combat 60 seconds ago.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives.

While you go about your day, unaware, military protocol kicks into motion. Notification must happen within eight hours. Officers are dispatched. A chaplain joins them. A medic may accompany them in case the grief is too much to bear.

Three figures arrive at your door. One asks your name. Then, by protocol, they ask to enter your home. You already know what’s coming. You sit down. He looks you in the eye and says:

The commandant of the Marine Corps has entrusted me to express his deep regret that your son John was killed in action on Friday, March 28. The commandant and the United States Marine Corps extend their deepest sympathy to you and your family in your loss.

This moment has played out thousands of times across American soil. In 2003 alone — just two years after 9/11 — 312 families endured it. In 2007, 847 American service members died in combat. In 2008, 352. In 2009, 346. The list goes on. And with every name, a family became a Gold Star family.

Honor the fallen

For most Americans, Memorial Day means backyard barbecues, family gatherings, maybe a trip to the lake or a sweet Airbnb. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying these things. But we must never forget why we can.

Ask any veteran who lived when others did not, and you’ll understand: Memorial Day is not just another holiday. It is a solemn day set apart for reverence.

So this weekend, reach out to a Gold Star family. Acknowledge their pain. Ask about their son or daughter. Let them know they’re not alone.

This is a day for sacred remembrance, for honoring those who laid down their lives — not for accolades but for love of country and the preservation of liberty. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).

They died for the Constitution, for our shared American ideals, and the worst thing we could do now would be to betray those ideals in a spirit of rage or division.

We cannot dishonor their sacrifice by abandoning the very principles they died to protect — equal justice, the rule of law, the enduring promise of liberty.

This Memorial Day, let us remember the fallen. Let us honor their families. Let us recommit ourselves to the cause they gave everything for: the American way of life.

They are the best of us.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump exposes Left’s habeas corpus hijack in border crisis

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Democrats accused the president of declaring war on civil rights. In reality, he’s defending habeas corpus while they drown it in delays and legal loopholes.

Tuesday’s congressional testimony from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem turned heads for all the wrong reasons. Pressed to define “habeas corpus,” she stumbled. And while I respect Noem, this moment revealed just how dangerously misunderstood one of our most vital legal protections has become — especially as it’s weaponized in the immigration debate.

Habeas corpus is not a loophole. It’s a shield. It’s the constitutional protection that prevents a government from detaining a person — any person — without first justifying the detention before a neutral judge. It doesn’t guarantee freedom. It demands due process. Prove it or release them.

Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

And yet, this doctrine — so essential to our liberty — is now being twisted by the political left into something it was never meant to be: a free pass for illegal immigration.

The left wants to frame this as a matter of compassion and rights. Leftists ask: “What about habeas corpus for migrants?” The implication is clear: They see any attempt to enforce immigration law as an attack on civil liberties.

But that’s a lie. Habeas corpus is not an excuse for indefinite presence. It doesn’t guarantee that every person who crosses the border gets to stay. It simply requires that we follow a process — a just process.

And that’s exactly what President Donald Trump has proposed.

Habeas corpus, rightly understood

Habeas corpus is the front door to the courtroom. It simply requires the government to justify why someone is being held or detained. It’s not about citizenship. It’s about human dignity.

America’s founders knew this — and that’s why they extended the right to persons, not just citizens. Habeas corpus isn’t a pass to stay in America forever — it’s a demand for legal clarity: “Why are you holding me?” That’s it.

If the government has a lawful reason — such as illegal entry — then deportation is a legitimate outcome. And yet, the left treats any enforcement of immigration law as a betrayal of American ideals.

The danger today isn’t that habeas corpus is being ignored; it’s that it’s being hijacked. The system is being overwhelmed with bad-faith cases, endless appeals, and delays that stretch for years. Right now, the immigration courts are buried under 3.3 million pending cases. The average wait time to have your case heard is four years. In some places, people are being scheduled for court dates as far out in 2032. Where is the justice in that?

This is not compassion. This is national sabotage.

Weaponizing due process

The left uses this legal bottleneck as a weapon, not a shield. Democrats invoke due process as if it requires the government to play a never-ending shell game with public safety. But that’s not what due process means. Due process means the state must play by the rules. It means a judge hears a case. It means the law is applied justly and equally. It does not mean an open border by procedural default.

So no, Trump is not proposing the end of habeas corpus. He’s calling out a broken system and saying, out loud, what millions of Americans already know: If we don’t fix this, we don’t have a country.

This crisis wasn’t an accident — it was engineered. It’s a Cloward-Piven playbook, designed to overwhelm the system. Bureaucratic inertia, activist judges, and political cowardice have turned due process into a slow-motion invasion. And the left knows it.

Abandon the Constitution?

Remember, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. But how do we balance the Constitution and our national survival without descending into authoritarianism? Abandon the Constitution? No. Burn the house down to get rid of the rats? Absolutely not. The Constitution itself gives us the tools to take on this crisis head on.

The federal government has clear authority over immigration. Illegal presence in the United States is not a protected right. Congress has the power to deny entry, enforce expedited removals, and reject bogus asylum claims. Much of this is already authorized by law — it’s simply not being used.

President Trump’s idea is simple: Use the tools we already have. Declare the southern border a national security emergency. Establish temporary military tribunals for triage. Process asylum claims swiftly outside the clogged court system. Restore “Remain in Mexico” so that the border is no longer a remote court room. Appoint more immigration judges, assign them to high-volume areas, and hold streamlined hearings that still respect due process.

That’s not authoritarian. That’s leadership.

The path forward

Trump is not trying to destroy habeas corpus. He’s trying to save it from being twisted into a self-destructive parody of itself. Leftists have turned due process into delay, justice into gridlock, and they’re dragging the entire country into their chaos.

It’s time to draw the line. Protect habeas corpus. Use it lawfully. Use it wisely. And yes — use it to restore order at the border. Because if we lose that firewall, we lose the republic.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Betrayal of trust: Medicare insurers face lawsuit over kickback scheme

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Editor's note: This article is sponsored by Chapter.

The U.S. government has filed a major lawsuit under the False Claims Act, targeting some of the biggest names in health insurance—Aetna, Elevance Health (formerly Anthem), and Humana—along with top insurance brokers eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote. The allegation? From 2016 to at least 2021, these companies funneled hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal kickbacks to brokers to steer seniors into their Medicare Advantage plans.

If the allegations are true, it means many Americans may have been steered into Medicare Advantage plans that weren’t necessarily the best fit for their needs—not because the plans were better, but because brokers were incentivized by illegal kickbacks.

The Kickback Conspiracy

Navigating Medicare Advantage’s maze of plan options is daunting, so beneficiaries rely on brokers like eHealth, GoHealth, and SelectQuote, who claim to be unbiased guides. But from 2016 to 2021, insurers Aetna, Humana, and Elevance Health allegedly paid brokers millions in kickbacks to favor their plans, regardless of quality. Disguised as “co-op” or “marketing” deals, these payments were tied to enrollment targets. Internal emails revealed executives knew this violated the Anti-Kickback Statute, with one eHealth leader joking that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would miss a $15 million Humana deal for minimal enrollments. Brokers used call routing to prioritize high-paying insurers, betraying beneficiaries’ trust.

Discrimination Against the Vulnerable

The scheme wasn’t just about profits—it targeted vulnerable beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage must accept all eligible enrollees, including disabled people under 65. Yet Aetna and Humana allegedly pressured brokers to limit their enrollment, as these beneficiaries were deemed to be less profitable. Brokers complied, rejecting referrals and filtering calls to favor healthier enrollees, incentivized by bonuses. This violated federal anti-discrimination laws and CMS contracts, undermining the founding principles of Medicare by discriminating against the very people it was created to aid.

False Claims and the Pursuit of Justice

The schemes led to false claims to CMS, with insurers certifying enrollments as “valid” despite kickbacks and discrimination. The government paid billions, unaware of the fraud. Examples include Humana’s $12,477 for a 2016 enrollment and Aetna’s $79,047 for a 2020 case. On May 1, 2025, the U.S. filed suit, seeking treble damages and penalties under the False Claims Act. Aetna and others deny the allegations, per May 2025 reports, promising a fierce defense. The case, demanding a jury trial, seeks justice for beneficiaries and taxpayers.

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