Ann Coulter: No regrets over labeling Ramaswamy as ‘Indian’

(NewsNation) — Veteran political commentator and author Ann Coulter says calling former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy an “Indian” wasn’t racist. Coulter defended her comment on “Dan Abrams Live” on Thursday.

“I agreed with many, many things you said … probably more than most other candidates when you were running for president,” Coulter told Ramaswamy on his podcast called The Truth. “But I still would not have voted for you because you’re an Indian.”

Ramaswamy, a self-made multi-millionaire who ran for the Republican presidential nomination, was born in Ohio to immigrants from India.

“I disagree with her but respect that she has the guts to speak her mind,” he wrote on X after Coulter’s appearance. Coulter, meanwhile, said her words to Ramaswamy reflect a long-held opinion.

“I’ve said it a million times. I think immigrants can wait a few generations before telling us what to do. I’m only talking about president,” she told Dan Abrams.

“It’s not racist,” she continued. “Blacks have been here longer than most whites. It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with being a citizen for at least three generations. I think that’s a good rule.”

There is no U.S. law or rule on how many generations one’s family must live in the U.S. before someone can run for president or any other office.

“There’s a reason the founders wanted the president to be natural-born — which Ted Cruz is not,” Coulter said. “President is different from any other position. I told him (Ramaswamy) he could be secretary of state, be a Supreme Court justice, be a governor. But president, I think we gotta wait for the third generation.”

Coulter’s comment about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz renews an argument raised when he was running for president in 2016. Cruz was born in Canada to a Cuban father and American mother.

People born outside the U.S. to at least one American parent are considered U.S. citizens. It’s been generally held that someone born outside the U.S. to at least one American parent is eligible to run for president, but that’s never been challenged in court.

The issue came up during at least three past presidential campaigns, most recently with Sen. John McCain. The Arizona Republican was born in 1936 in the Panama Canal Zone. Michigan Gov. George Romney, a Republican candidate in 1968, was born in Mexico to American parents. And Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, who was the GOP presidential nominee in 1964, was born in what was then Arizona Territory in 1909.

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