I was on the Wilkow! show with host Andrew Wilkow talking about why in the world Nikki Haley stays in the presidential race since most of the Republican base do not see Nikki Haley as presidential material. Also how staying in is harming her political credentials, who College Republicans at her own alma mater support, and more.
Watch:
TRANSCRIPT
ANDREW WILKOW
Welcome to the program. I am your host, Andrew Wilkow. As you could probably hear, my voice is very hoarse last night after this program, I raced on the subway to Madison Square Garden to go to a concert. Maybe you heard of the band Pantera? Okay. Anyway, so we’re going to make it through this hour.
I don’t normally use Fox News clips to make a point, but here we are the day before the South Carolina primary, and I think Harris Faulkner sounds like my spirit animal. Take a look.
VIDEO OF FOX NEWS
HARRIS FAULKNER
This Saturday, the primary. How do you get there beyond the state when you haven’t won a state yet? How do you win your first state?
NIKKI HALEY
I mean, it’s amazing to say I haven’t won a state yet and we’ve only had three states that have voted.
FAULKNER
Well, it’s not amazing. South Carolina is winner take all.
HALEY
I mean, Carolinians have not voted yet. South Carolinians have not voted yet. If if you and everybody else tells me to get out of this race, it would be the longest general election race in history.
FAULKNER
I’m not telling you the longest general election race.
WILKOW
I did a whole monologue saying it wasn’t my job to tell Nikki Haley to get out of the race. I just don’t see a path for her. My first guess as a conservative political analyst, commentator, lawyer, podcast host, YouTube host and author of the book Right in the World, my friend Gayle Trotter.
I don’t think anyone’s telling Nikki Haley to get out of the race. They’re just basically asking your where do you see your path to victory?
GAYLE TROTTER
I think when you look at the analysis of why Nikki Haley would stay in the race, it comes down to three reasons.
One, she’s trying to do a Kamala Harris where she’s hoping that Trump will pick her to be his VP, which might be surprising to people considering she’s going after him.
But you know that former President Trump doesn’t hold that against people, and he tries to bring people in and you saw that with Mitt Romney and other people in the political presidential competition in 2016. So she could be trying to do a Kamala Harris.
Secondly, she could be trying to mount some sort of No Labels campaign to draw people away from voting for Trump and to be a spoiler that we’ve seen in prior presidential campaigns.
The third possibility is that she is hoping she will be the last man standing, that she is having people tell her something is going to happen to Trump with all these indictments and he is going to either be convicted of something. Or he’s going to pull out or you saw with the verdict in the New York case this massive financial penalty against President Trump and his family.
So there are lots of things that are going on. And I think given those three possibilities, the most likely reason she’s staying in it is because she’s hoping to be the last man standing.
But I will tell you, I went down to Clemson University in the fall, and I spoke and talked about Second Amendment and our Constitutional rights.
After the speech, I was able to speak with the College Republicans of Nikki Haley’s alma mater in South Carolina and they were not supporting her. None of them were supporting her. They were supporting former President Trump.
So I think she is going to have a come-to-Jesus moment this weekend when she realizes not only does she lose her state that she was governor of, but she loses it by such a wide margin that it will just be embarrassing to stay in the race.
So at that point, she has to decide whether her ambition is more important than the safety and the security of the country. I’m hoping she makes the right decision.
WILKOW
Well, look, to every Republican voter by almost two thirds, she feels like a snap back to the Bush wing of the party. Right?
And one of the greatest victories was pretty much Jeb was out by South Carolina and Trump obviously went on to victory. We did an analysis of all the polls that FiveThirtyEight is using in California.
We looked at the blue states, the only two states where she is closer inside a margin of 30 points is Massachusetts and Vermont. It’s like 35 points in South Carolina, it’s 80 points in Texas. If you look at Alabama, Arkansas, it’s even worse.
It’s just by the time Super Tuesday comes along, adding Nevada, South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa and all the 15 states on Super Tuesday, Trump has the delegate count to be the nominee.
TROTTER
She keeps saying she’s going to stay in it until the last vote is counted. That does not seem very wise to me from a political standpoint. What exactly is she trying to accomplish other than being a spoiler, essentially?
I think maybe she would want to be Trump’s VP pick. But he talked about in the town hall this week who he is looking at to select as his V.P. Obviously, her name didn’t come up. I think he has a lot of better options than Nikki Haley to pick as his running mate.
I think she just has no path to continuing forward, not only as a presidential candidate, but I think this is really harming her general political credentials as well.
She’s getting hammered, right?
WILKOW
Reagan took Bush to shut up the establishment. Obama took Biden to shut up the establishment. Trump took Pence to shut up the establishment. He doesn’t have to do that this time around. Right?
I don’t think anybody in Trump’s base of support wants to think in four years she’s the heir apparent. Right? They don’t.That’s the fear Democrats even have about Kamala Harris at this point.
They don’t want to think in four years, oh boy, it’s going to be Nikki Haley. If you don’t like her now, you’re not going to like her four years.
TROTTER
He said that in the town hall this week, you might remember when he was asked about how are you going to decide who you’re going to pick as your running mate? He said, well, the most important characteristic is will this person be able to be president if something happened?
I think most of the Republican base who are so passionately supporting Trump do not see Nikki Haley as presidential material.
I think the longer she stays in this, the less goodwill that a lot of Republicans will have towards her because they will see her as harming the ability to wrest the presidency away from the Biden administration that has created so many catastrophic situations, not just for Americans, but also for migrants who are coming here and risking harm, getting over the border, and also for obviously, Ukraine and Russia.
We had no invasions by Russia during President Trump’s administration, and yet we saw that with President Obama and we have seen that with President Biden.
Republicans are getting really tired of this. She should really join in and rally around the flag, not kiss the ring, but rally around the flag and support this opposition to the Biden administration, which all it’s doing is really wrecking our country.
WILKOW
Well, I will say this. He’s got some great, great possible choices. I mean, Byron Donalds, Lee Zeldin, Tim Scott, there are so many people out there. I know Kristi Noem is on that list. Yes. There’s a lot of people he could pick that are not going to be Nikki Haley, is what I’m saying. All right. I got to leave it there.
Thanks so much for joining us.
TROTTER
Great to be with you, Andrew.
