On Saturday’s broadcast of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” conservative commentator Ann Coulter criticized Republican politicians, particular the potential candidates for the party’s 2016 presidential nomination, for their responses to the controversy surrounding Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

According to Coulter, it shouldn’t be up liberals to dictate what Republicans react to and she cited a litany of so-called “fake stories.”

“I think very badly. And, you see this a lot, as I run in my column this week, we’ve been going through hate week — a different hate week every month,” Coulter said. “All the media does now is create a series of fake stories that we’re all required to respond to, from Ferguson, ‘hands up don’t shoot,’ you had Duke Lacrosse fake rape, you’ve had UVA fraternity fake rape. And now this week it’s Indiana hates gays for a law that’s been on the books forever and no restaurant has turned any gays away. So, it’s a nonsense story. It’s a fake story we’re being forced to respond to. A lot of Republicans get scared by the media’s hysteria and instantly come up with some cowardly response, as for example, I think Rand Paul with Ferguson. He is denouncing the military vehicles, you know the excess military vehicles that were being sold to police and he blames that for upsetting, upsetting the black community in Ferguson. Well, then we’d have two days of riots. Could we intersperse rand Paul’s denunciation with the tanks of the riots? And now politicians are saying something was done wrong here.”

“I think as with ‘hands up don’t shoot,’ once the dust settles, which is why I’d recommend to Republican politicians, whenever liberals are being hysterical, try not to suck up to them,” she added. “It’s going to make you look bad two weeks later.”

According to Coulter, these Republican responses only encourage more of the hysteria andit shouldbe up to surrogates for the candidate, not the candidates themselves, to offer any reactions.

“It makes them go for blood more. And I do think at the same time, it’s worth saying because I was annoyed with some of the alleged Tea Party types for saying that Romney wasn’t tough enough and he should have said this and he should have said that,” she said. “At the same time, the nominee has to be gentlemanly and gracious. It’s the pundits and other politicians that are supposed to be the attacks dogs, as Harry Reid was for Obama as we’ve all been talking about this week — lying on behalf of Obama. Let your candidates stand back and be gracious, but at the same time, you know, don’t start capitulating a nonsense story.”

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