MSNBC hosted Coulter and highlighted, without challenge, her assertion that Obama “wouldn't be running ... if he weren't half-black”

MSNBC hosted right-wing pundit Ann Coulter to discuss the 2008 presidential race less than 24 hours after she repeatedly referred to Sen. Barack Obama as “B. Hussein Obama” and “President Hussein.”

Less than 24 hours after she repeatedly referred to Sen. Barack Obama as “B. Hussein Obama” and “President Hussein,” right-wing pundit Ann Coulter appeared on the February 14 broadcast of MSNBC News Live to discuss former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (AZ). During her appearance, on-screen text highlighted her February 8 assertion in a speech she made to the Young America's Foundation that Obama “wouldn't be running for president if he weren't half-black.” The on-screen text read: “COULTER: OBAMA WOULDN'T BE RUNNING IF HE WERE NOT HALF BLACK.”

In the Young America's Foundation speech, Coulter said: "[T]he only Democrat who can stop [Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton] now is B. Hussein Obama. His strongest selling point is that he is one of the least dangerous people I know named Hussein. Other than that, Barack's really been kind of coasting on his record, since his first big accomplishment of being born half-black." Coulter continued: “I keep hearing people say, 'Oh, Obama could never be elected because he's half-black. You know, 'cause we're just such a racist country.' What are they talking about? He wouldn't be running for president if he weren't half-black. He'd be [Sen.] Dick Durbin [D-IL] with less experience.”

From the 4 p.m. ET hour of the February 14 edition of MSNBC News Live:

BREWER: Ann Coulter joins me now. It's great to meet you in person.

COULTER: Nice to meet you in person.

BREWER: All right. What do you make of this? Mitt Romney now is throwing the support that he has behind John McCain.

COULTER: Well, it's the gracious thing to do, and particularly if he wants to run again. But I think even if he weren't running again. He is -- certainly if he's running again, he has to endorse the Republican nominee. But he has to support the Republican apparatus. And by the way, I don't. I'm not running for president.

BREWER: And I want to play something that you said about John McCain a while back and whether you would support him or not. Do we have it? We don't have it.

COULTER: I think I know the gist of it.

BREWER: Well, can you just repeat it? Why don't you --

COULTER: Oh, there it is.

BREWER: Oh now, here you are. Let's play it.

COULTER [video clip]: ... our candidate, then Hillary's going to be our girl, Sean, 'cause she's more conservative than he is. I think she would be stronger on the war on terrorism. ... I will campaign for her if it's McCain.

BREWER: Wow. It looks at this point like it's probably going to be McCain. So my question to you is, when are you going to start campaigning for Hillary Clinton?

COULTER: Well, she's not doing that badly. It looks like she's up in the polls in Iowa. Neither of the Democrats can take it I think by the convention. So I think my gal's doing just fine.

BREWER: So she doesn't need your help, in other words?

COULTER: Yes. And probably won't need my help.

BREWER: Just throwing it out there. Why do you have such a problem with John McCain? You and Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham last week at the CPAC convention -- right before Romney announces he's going to drop out of the race, and she's up there just ripping McCain apart.

COULTER: Well, I'm a conservative. And I'm not going to be running for president as a Republican, so I don't have to support whomever they nominate. And, you know, our campaign against Hillary will have to be: “She's no good. She voted for the bills our candidate introduced” -- like McCain-Feingold, like McCain-Kennedy, like McCain-Lieberman. He's actually campaigning for stuff we oppose her for supporting when she's seeking the nomination from the Democratic Party.

BREWER: But he got up in front of all these conservatives last week and he said, “OK, look, you guys have a problem with me on illegal immigration. Let me make myself clear” --

COULTER: Oh, and many more things.

BREWER: Let's start with illegal immigration. He says, “I care about border security too; it's not that I don't care about border security. Fine, you want that to be the first thing on the list? Let's get done; let's do that. There's just other things that I back the president on.” Why is that a problem for you?

COULTER: Well, that isn't the only thing, but also in the last Republican debate he refused to say he would not push for amnesty. What he said was, oh, that won't come up again. And the questioner from the LA Times kept saying, “But, OK, this is a hypothetical. We're having a debate here. If it came up again, amnesty, McCain-Kennedy, would you sign it?” And he refused to just say, “No, I'm against it.” I don't know why you'd change your mind that much anyway. And moreover, even at the speech before CPAC -- you know, his big appeal to conservatives -- what he says is, “I think only some of you are racists. I know most of you supported it for law-and-order reasons.” Well, what about -- it was only some of us are racist.

BREWER: What about -- and you guys, you, and Rush Limbaugh, and Laura Ingraham, and other conservatives --

COULTER: Well, it's more than that. It's Thomas Sowell, George Will. It's basically all the conservatives --

BREWER: We could sit here all day and name off everybody else.

COULTER: But the reason I'm mentioning them by name is to make a specific point. And that is, curiously, despite years of, you know, the MSM trying to portray conservatives as six-fingered Neanderthals, all of the intellectual conservatives -- and I'm referring not necessarily to myself, but Thomas Sowell, George Will, Rush Limbaugh -- they are all against McCain. The people supporting McCain are party hacks or people who sort of have to.

BREWER: I mean, given the fact that he says the reason I didn't vote for the tax cuts the first time around is because there weren't spending cuts to go around --

COULTER: He didn't say that at the time.

BREWER: Here we have eight years of some of the biggest government spending that we have seen since FDR, and you have McCain who says, look, we've got to rein this in. Isn't that a very traditional, government, Republican platform? Isn't that the Republicans -- isn't that what they're supposed to stand for?

COULTER: Well, a couple of things on that. At the time, he didn't say only if spending cuts are attached. He said these are tax cuts for the rich. Moreover, if he's so interested in getting these earmarks down -- which is just boilerplate; you know, every politician says that -- why don't they do something about that?

BREWER: I know, but he is doing something about it. He has not put earmarks in his bills.

COULTER: Well, bully for him. How about instead of holding a hearing on baseball in steroids -- or steroids in baseball like he did two years ago, how about he holds a hearing on the earmarks? And number three, the fact that the MSM keeps arguing with me so ferociously about McCain suggests to me that I am right.

BREWER: If you're so right, Ann Coulter, then why are so many other people voting for John McCain against what your best advice is?

COULTER: We'll see what happens in the end. That's part of the reason I think McCain is such a disaster. The reason we have such a pathetic list of candidates on both sides this year is because of his campaign-finance bill -- law, which has grossly exaggerated the power of the mainstream media and the power of people like George Soros. John McCain is the candidate of George Soros. I mean, Soros picked both Obama and McCain.

BREWER: Well, and that's going to be a tough one if Obama ends up being the Democratic --

COULTER: Who does Soros go for?

BREWER: There you have a conundrum, definitely. Ann, thank you. I appreciate having you in here.

COULTER: Thank you.