The Ann Coulter dinner is an anecdote John Kiriakou told in January 2026, when asked for his view of the conservative commentator, and which he used to make a general point about paid political performance rather than about her opinions.
How it happened
Coulter had, in Kiriakou’s account, dated a good friend of his from college. He was in Los Angeles around 2016, seeing another college friend, and the two of them decided to call the first — Merrill — and arrange dinner in Koreatown. Merrill said great, and then showed up with Ann Coulter.[1][2]
Kiriakou’s reaction at the table was to turn to the other friend and ask whether that was in fact Ann Coulter, and to be told, “Didn’t you know that Merrill was seeing Ann Coulter?”[2]
The evening
His account of her company is unhedged. “Listen, she could not have been any lovelier that night. She was interesting. She was well-informed.”[2]
And from that, the conclusion: “All that, you know, hatred that she spews against everybody, it’s all an act.”[2][3] When Rall called her a phony, Kiriakou’s addition was that she has “seriously cashed in on that act” — “But that’s not her at all.”[3]
He closed the loop with the friend. When the pair finally left at the end of the dinner, he said to the other man that this was not at all what he had expected when he saw her walk in, and got the answer: “Oh yeah, that that’s all an act. That’s how she makes her living.”[3]
What Rall drew from it
Rall’s objection was to the practice rather than the person — that coming on so strong while holding fake politics is disgusting precisely because the performer is moving the political needle in ways that change people’s real lives, and that the honest course is to believe what you believe and fight for it.[3] Kiriakou also noted, of her books, that they take their strength from popular hatred and that she makes millions from them.[3]