GOP presidential candidate and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley warned of a possible 2024 scenario that she said should worry all Americans.
Speaking with Fox News, Mrs. Haley said that Vice President Kamala Harris would become president if President Joe Biden wins in 2024, which, according to her, should “send a chill up every American spine.”
Then, she said former President Donald Trump, the current frontrunner among Republican presidential candidates, has a slim chance of winning against President Joe Biden during next year’s election.
“Donald Trump is a friend of mine. It was an honor to serve in the administration and work on foreign policy with him, and I agree with a lot of his policies. But the fact is, I don’t know if it’s four or five or six or how many indictments it is now, but he’s going to spend a lot of time in a courtroom and not on a campaign trail,” she told Fox News on Sunday.
“My concern is we cannot have Kamala Harris as president. We can’t chance this. We have to make sure that we have a new generational leader that’s going to bring in not only Republicans, but we’re going to pull back the independents,” Mrs. Haley said, adding that Republicans need to target suburban women, Latinos, and Asian-Americans.
Neither Ms. Harris nor the president have issued public comments on Mrs. Haley’s claims. The former president also hasn’t responded to Mrs. Haley, and so far, he’s made few comments about the former U.N. ambassador since she entered the presidential race.
Mrs. Haley was one of eight Republicans who partook in the first GOP debate last week. President Trump, however, did not attend the debate, citing his significant lead in the polls and his track record as America’s 45th president.
Some polls also show that most Republicans view the criminal charges against President Trump as politically motivated, making the topic a tricky one to navigate for his rivals.
Despite her only getting 5 percent in recent polls, Mrs. Haley’s team and others in the GOP claim that she is now riding post-debate momentum.
“Nikki Haley shined on the debate stage. She was tough and honest, which is exactly what the American people need,” said Annie Dickerson, a veteran GOP fundraiser and founder of Winning for Women Action Fund, which appears to back Mrs. Haley, according to The Hill. “She introduced voters to her vision for a strong and proud America, and it’s resonating.”
Mrs. Haley’s campaign told the outlet that the response to her debate performance has been “overwhelming,“ saying, “Voters saw Nikki Haley’s toughness and readiness to be president in last night’s debate.”
“It’s actually just getting started,” she told Ms. Bartiromo Sunday. “And so we’ve done 80 events and New Hampshire and Iowa. We’re going to keep being there. We’re doing events in South Carolina all this week. We’re going to keep focusing on touching as many hands as we can, answering every question.”
But some polls suggested that it was Mr. Ramaswamy, who often sparred with Mrs. Haley about whether the United States should give money to Israel and Ukraine, who won the debate. President Trump last week declared Mr. Ramaswamy the victor after the debate, during which Mr. Ramaswamy praised the former president as being the “best president of the 21st century.”
“This answer gave Vivek Ramaswamy a big WIN in the debate because of a thing called TRUTH. Thank you Vivek!” President Trump wrote on Truth Social.
At one point during the debate, Mrs. Haley claimed Mr. Ramaswamy “wants to hand Ukraine to Russia, he wants to let China eat Taiwan, he wants to go and stop funding Israel,” adding that “you don’t do that to friends. What you do instead is you have the backs of your friends.”
Mr. Ramaswamy responded by saying she was “pushing this lie” about him and suggested that Mrs. Haley is working at the behest of defense contractors and the military industrial complex. On social media, some conservative pundits have criticized Mrs. Haley’s policy agenda as being similar to that of former President George W. Bush, who launched two wars in the Middle East in the early 2000s.
“I wish you well in your future career on the boards of Lockheed [Martin] and Raytheon,” Mr. Ramaswamy said, referring to two major defense contractors.
