After reports that Ann Coulter had been banned from NBC News, her return to the "Today" show set this Wednesday morning was, as expected, a fiery one with co-host Matt Lauer. The conservative author put Lauer on the defensive on her being bumped for the likes of Rachel Maddow and Perez Hilton, his colleague Brian Williams’ softball questions to Barack Obama, and Lauer’s charges that Coulter’s takes on single motherhood and Obama’s middle name were "outrageous," and "venomous." First up, Coulter stuck it to Lauer on his, rather lame excuse for her being bumped from yesterday’s "Today" show:
MATT LAUER: Let me just get to this little controversy. You've been all over the blogs in the last day or so. We cancelled your appearance here on Tuesday. And from what I've been reading you thought you were banned for life from the show. Did, were you behind that report?
ANN COULTER: No, I didn't say that. That was from a reliable news report that, by the way, had never, has never had to retract a report on exploding GM trucks. But I do know that, like NBC. Um, it apparently took-
LAUER: So we're either dead or you weren't banned.
COULTER: It apparently took eight hours for the "Today" show to remember that there was a Wednesday show that I could be invited back to. It took the Drudge Report posting that, for the Wednesday invitation to appear.
LAUER: You, you-
COULTER: But I'm very happy to be here Matt Lauer.
LAUER: You said all kinds of things. That, that one of the reasons you weren't on the show is because the mainstream liberal media hates conservatives. I mean you do know that we-
COULTER: I didn't say that.
LAUER: Yeah you did.
COULTER: Where did you say that?
LAUER: On, I think it was on "Hannity & Colmes" or something like that.
COULTER: That the mainstream media hates conservatives? I didn't say that.
LAUER: Yeah. You, you know that we've had every major conservative-
COULTER: I have much more colorful language. I mean you're capturing the thought, that's just not my language.
LAUER: Do, do, do you think though that much was made of this and maybe you helped fan the fire here a little bit to (holds up book) make a controversy to sell the book?
COULTER: No I don't think I'd be sitting here now if it hadn't been a headline on Drudge. But let's get to the book-
LAUER: Really?
COULTER: -because I do want to talk about the book.
LAUER: But we've had you on so many times in the past. After every book you've always been invited back. Why would you, all of a sudden, be banned?
COULTER: Well I was, well I don't know. I mean that's not for me to answer what your motives are.
LAUER: We made it, we traded you out for Tony Blair yesterday. And I think that's a pretty good switch.
COULTER: Well yeah, more than Tony Blair on for four hours.
LAUER: Yeah right.
COULTER: It's a four hour show.
LAUER: But you were, in your slot where you were supposed to be yesterday morning was Tony Blair.
COULTER: Um, and Rachel Maddow, and various gossip columnists-
LAUER: Afterward.
COULTER: -and a bear.
LAUER: Afterward.
COULTER: The point is I was cancelled twice and it wasn't until the Drudge Report ran a headline, on its own reporting, and the Drudge Report has never had to retract a report-
LAUER: You know-
COULTER: -the way NBC News has.
LAUER: You know, you know what that expression is? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you don't have enemies.
Then a little later in the segment, Coulter took the liberal media and specifically, Lauer’s colleague, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, to task for giving Obama a free ride during the campaign:
LAUER: We've just come through an election cycle where it seemed to me and maybe I'm completely wrong because apparently, according to you, I'm wrong about most things, but that, that people have decided it's time to address the issues that face this country. The economy clearly one. Unemployment. Things like that. And to maybe concentrate less on what divides us. Did you not get that sense from this? I mean I'm just asking is-
COULTER: No.
LAUER: You didn't get that sense from this election?
COULTER: No, to the contrary and as I detail, at great length in this book, we didn't, I mean to say we want to concentrate on the issues, then why wasn't B. Hussein Obama asked about the issues? He was asked, as I describe over and over in my book, you know the tough "gotcha" questions he'd get from the media were things like, "How did you feel tonight? You must have been thinking about your parents."
LAUER: Do you, do you not get a sense though-
COULTER: That's from Brian Williams.
LAUER: -that people want-
COULTER: Meanwhile Sarah Palin is memorizing the last seven kings of Swaziland.
LAUER: Do you not get a sense that people want a different tone? That they want a different attitude? That they want, maybe, to start to pull together?
COULTER: No I think liberals want conservatives to stop talking so that you can keep telling us how marvelous B. Hussein Obama is. You were not asking him about the issues during the campaign, which is why, well the next four years, I think, are gonna be a surprise for all of us because he can't keep voting, "present."
The following is the complete transcript of Coulter’s segment as it was aired in the 7am half hour of the January 7, "Today" show:
MATT LAUER: Conservative commentator Ann Coulter is a bestselling author and syndicated columnist. Her latest book is Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault On America. Ann, good morning. Nice to have you here.
[On screen headline: "Conservative Queen, Coulter's Assault On Liberal America"]
ANN COULTER: Good morning, it's great to be here.
LAUER: I want to talk about [Roland] Burris in a second, but let, let me just get to this little controversy. You've been all over the blogs in the last day or so. We cancelled your appearance here on Tuesday. And from what I've been reading you thought you were banned for life from the show. Did, were you behind that report?
COULTER: No, I didn't say that. That was from a reliable news report that, by the way, had never, has never had to retract a report on exploding GM trucks. But I do know that, like NBC. Um, it apparently took-
LAUER: So we're either dead or you weren't banned.
COULTER: It apparently took eight hours for the "Today" show to remember that there was a Wednesday show that I could be invited back to. It took the Drudge Report posting that, for the Wednesday invitation to appear.
LAUER: You, you-
COULTER: But I'm very happy to be here Matt Lauer.
LAUER: You said all kinds of things. That, that one of the reasons you weren't on the show is because the mainstream liberal media hates conservatives. I mean you do know that we-
COULTER: I didn't say that.
LAUER: Yeah you did.
COULTER: Where did you say that?
LAUER: On, I think it was on "Hannity & Colmes" or something like that.
COULTER: That the mainstream media hates conservatives? I didn't say that.
LAUER: Yeah. You, you know that we've had every major conservative-
COULTER: I have much more colorful language. I mean you're capturing the thought, that's just not my language.
LAUER: Do, do, do you think though that much was made of this and maybe you helped fan the fire here a little bit to (holds up book) make a controversy to sell the book?
COULTER: No I don't think I'd be sitting here now if it hadn't been a headline on Drudge. But let's get to the book-
LAUER: Really?
COULTER: -because I do want to talk about the book.
LAUER: But we've had you on so many times in the past. After every book you've always been invited back. Why would you, all of a sudden, be banned?
COULTER: Well I was, well I don't know. I mean that's not for me to answer what your motives are.
LAUER: We made it, we traded you out for Tony Blair yesterday. And I think that's a pretty good switch.
COULTER: Well yeah, more than Tony Blair on for four hours.
LAUER: Yeah right.
COULTER: It's a four hour show.
LAUER: But you were, in your slot where you were supposed to be yesterday morning was Tony Blair.
COULTER: Um, and Rachel Maddow, and various gossip columnists-
LAUER: Afterward.
COULTER: -and a bear.
LAUER: Afterward.
COULTER: The point is I was cancelled twice and it wasn't until the Drudge Report ran a headline, on its own reporting, and the Drudge Report has never had to retract a report-
LAUER: You know-
COULTER: -the way NBC News has.
LAUER: You know, you know what that expression is? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you don't have enemies. But anyway. Let, let's get to-
COULTER: Let's get to the reason I wanted to be here.
LAUER: Let me get to Roland Burris first. Let me get to Roland Burris first. What's going on here? Has Rod Blagojevich pulled a fast one on the Democratic leadership here?
COULTER: I am like Roland Burris. I was turned away but I'm back.
LAUER: But I mean has he pulled one over on the Democrats here?
COULTER: Look I haven't been following this. I have a brand new book out. I'm very happy about it. All I can say is they're all Democrats so I don't really care what happens. But I do know, I have read the Constitution, and the Senate cannot turn away an appointed senator by a sitting governor. They can't do it.
LAUER: In, in the, in the book you say that liberals play victims all the time, and then they use that victimization to go on the attack.
COULTER: Right.
LAUER: You also say that the liberal media and Democrats are out to accomplish the same thing, they want to destroy America. So I mean, go ahead, why, why do liberals and the media want to destroy America?
COULTER: Oh why? Their motives? Well I'd have to be their confessor or psychologist to understand that. I'm, I'm describing the results. And one beautiful example of this my, my chapter two of the book, is the exultation of single motherhood. It, it's promoted in the New York Times and all the glossy women's magazines and Hollywood movies. And we now know, after 30 years of promoting single motherhood, of the courts destroying the institute of marriage, that children raised without fathers are filling up the prisons, are 70 percent of the teenage runaways, of, of teenage pregnancies, of rapists.
LAUER: Hasn't the mainstream media also done extensive reporting on the problem of the disintegration of the American family?
COULTER: Not so much.
LAUER: And talked about the responsibility that needs to be held by men and fathers and all that sort of thing?
COULTER: No, not so much actually. I mean I think I document that pretty well. You have Barbara Ehrenreich, who used to be a regular reporter for Time magazine and the New York Times, and she is constantly denouncing the nuclear family. National Organization for Women has a bumper sticker, "One Nuclear Family Can Destroy Your Whole Life."
LAUER: But there are a lot of other voices, there are a lot of other voices that say, "Hey we need fathers and mothers to raise children together." The, the point I want to make with this, is you, you say it and I don't have time to read the whole excerpt from the book and if people want to buy it they should go off and do that. But you say it in a fairly outrageous way. The last sentence of which and I need my glasses now. The last sentence of which is, "Countless studies on the subject make clear, look at almost any societal problem and you'll find it is really a problem of single mothers."
COULTER: Yes.
LAUER: And I think Harry Smith, I think did a, tried to raise this point with you yesterday. When you make outrageous comments-
COULTER: That isn't outrageous. That's a fact.
LAUER: When, when you, when you make outrageous comments and you use that kind of venomous tone, in some ways do you cut your own credibility off and take away from the real viable points you make in some of this?
COULTER: Okay, can I answer now?
LAUER: Sure.
COULTER: It'll be more than half a sentence. No, I mean on one hand you just said, "Look the mainstream media we're, we're totally standing up for the, for the nuclear family," and then you turn around and say that, the statement you just quoted, is an outrageous statement to make.
