After The Free Press and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression held a roughly two-hour-long debate on Thursday evening addressing whether the United States should close its borders, a number of participants spoke with The Dallas Express.
The debate was held at the Majestic Theatre in Downtown Dallas, where Ann Coulter, Cenk Uygur, Nick Gillespie, and Bari Weiss spoke. Like the debate, the post-debate interviews with the guest speakers focused on immigration.
DX asked Coulter, the author of numerous bestsellers, including ¡Adios, America! The Left’s Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole, a 2015 attack on U.S. immigration policy, what she thought about Gov. Greg Abbott’s move to secure Eagle Pass.
“I was hoping something would incapacitate Trump so you [Texans] could write in Abbott’s name for the nomination,” Coulter quipped.
Coulter had previously supported former President Donald Trump, speaking at his rallies and releasing a book in 2016 titled In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome! However, her relationship with him soured when Coulter believed, among other things, that he was not keeping his promises when it came to unlawful migration and immigration policy writ large. In 2024, Coulter supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom she often called “miracle Governor Ron DeSantis” because of his work to protect personal liberties during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
DeSantis even appeared on Coulter’s podcast, UNSAFE, shortly after he announced his presidential candidacy. DeSantis eventually dropped out of the 2024 Republican primary, stating in a January 21, 2024, video, “It’s clear to me that a majority of Republican primary voters want to give Donald Trump another chance.”
Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, also mentioned Trump when speaking with DX.
“Biden should’ve had his own immigration policy, and he never really had one,” Uygur said. “Biden is begging Trump to do Trump’s policy.”
Uygur clarified that he opposed Trump’s stance on migration but acknowledged that the 45th president’s plan contained a vision: “I don’t agree with Trump’s plan, but it signaled to his voters and his base that he was willing to do something.”
Gillespie’s sentiments were more expository. When asked about Eagle Pass and whether unlawful migration was a state’s rights issue, the former editor-in-chief of Reason.com and Reason TV said, “In general, border control is a federal issue, but whenever it fails, it gives rise to the states.”
He compared the matter to the issue of marijuana laws, noting what appears to be a political realignment concerning state rights because the federal government has been widely perceived as failing when it comes to unlawful migration.
True to her role as moderator, Bari Weiss did not speak to any issue directly. Instead, she spoke generally about the debate itself.
“The fact that Ann Coulter and Nick Gillespie can be on the same stage in 2024 gives me hope,” Weiss said.
She said the April 11 debate was “so exciting” because it was “in the spirit of the free press,” the namesake of the outlet she co-founded with Nellie Bowles after Weiss resigned from The New York Times. To Weiss, the event offered a “passionate, civil, and urgent debate to cities across the country.”
