In an appearance on Tuesday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Vice News Tonight,” conservative columnist Ann Coulter acknowledged she did not see President Donald Trump succumbing to the wishes of “Manhattan elites,” as is it has seemed to many during the first two years of his presidency.

However, Coulter argued his unwillingness to give in on border wall funding to end the current government shutdown was a show of “self-preservation.”

According to Coulter, Trump is “dead in the water” if he doesn’t build the wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Partial transcript as follows:

MOYNIHAN: There’s two Ann Coulters here. There’s the Ann Coulter that wrote “In Trump We Trust,” and supported him during the campaign and introduced him, and there’s the other one that acknowledges that all this stuff has been usurped by Wall Street, by people in the administration. They didn’t drain the swamp. COULTER: That’s fair to say — MOYNIHAN: He’s wading through the swamp, right? So great, fantastic. Donald Trump talks a good game for people who agree with you. But what the hell does he do? COULTER: For 18 months, he said all the right things. He never cared about what Manhattan elites said, and then, bam, Election Day 2016 — suddenly all he wants is the approval of Manhattan elites. Who could have seen that coming? But recently in the last couple of weeks, we’ve reeled him back. I mean, the one thing I think — not only with Trump — I — you’d think especially with Trump but with anyone, is self-preservation and self-esteem. He doesn’t — MOYNIHAN: So why is he digging his heels in on immigration now? COULTER: That’s why — that’s why. MOYNIHAN: But why now? COULTER: It is self-preservation because he is dead in the water if he doesn’t build that wall. Dead, dead, dead.

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