GOP Presidential candidate Nikki Haley was asked at a New Hampshire appearance on Thursday what she thought history would say about President Donald Trump in 100 years.
“You get the prize for the question I haven’t been asked,” she initially replied.The former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. under the Trump administration, who is showing in some polls as only second to the former president in the 2024 primary race, then went on with the following impromptu answer.
“He was the right President at the right time,” said the former South Carolina governor. “He broke things that needed to be broken; he listened and brought in a group of people who felt had been unheard like where I grew up—rural South Carolina. He was strong on foreign policy and getting America’s respect in the world.” She also credited President Trump with doing a better job than President Joe Biden has done at the border.
But she also said that Mr. Trump was “thin skinned and easily distracted.”
“He didn’t do anything on fiscal policy and really spent a lot of money and we are all paying the price for it.” she said. Mrs. Haley added that President Trump now has started to walk back his foreign policy, saying he is “getting weak in the knees when it comes to Ukraine.”
Her final comment in response to the question was about the Jan. 6 protest at the Capitol.
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“A terrible thing happened on Jan. 6, a beautiful day and in the eyes of America it was a terrible day,” said Mrs. Haley.
In her final stop in three appearances in a row in New Hampshire, Mrs. Haley put some humor into her recurrent call for mental competency tests for government officials, saying that “right now White House is the most privileged nursing home in the country.”
Several polls are showing she is neck and neck with wealthy pharmaceutical entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy for second place on the crowded GOP primary ticket. President Trump holds at least a 43 percent lead over both of them for the nomination.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has until recently been second behind President Trump, has been slipping in the polls, with a New Hampshire poll released this morning showing he has even fallen behind former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was deemed a fringe candidate upon entry into the race.
At her appearance at a country club in Greenland, New Hampshire, she won accolades from Republicans like John Sullivan, who served in both the Ford and Reagan administrations as a strategist and speech writer. “Ambassador Haley, that was a stunning speech, it was really brilliant,” said Mr. Sullivan, “It needs to be seen, read, and heard by every American.”
Earlier in the day at an early morning breakfast appearance, Mrs. Haley earned a standing ovation over a myriad of proposals including implementing a moratorium on federal spending until the nation’s budget is returned to pre-pandemic levels, defunding sanctuary states, and suspending the pay of Congress for failing to balance the budget.
She proposed calling back $500 billion in unpaid COVID debts and placed blame as much on Republicans as Democrats for out-of-control government spending. She is planning to unveil a major economic recovery proposal at a scheduled Friday night appearance in New Hampshire.
“You want to know how they spend your money?” asked the former governor. “$30 million on an Honors College in Vermont, $10 million to tear down a motel in Alaska, and seven and a half million on a courthouse in Colorado. And the list goes on.”
For the 2024 Appropriations Budget, Mrs. Haley said that while Democrats have proposed $2.8 billion in pet-project spending, Republicans have proposed $7.4 billion.
Mrs. Haley, whose husband Michael, a combat veteran and current captain in South Carolina’s National Guard, also touched on what she sees as an erosion of America’s once robust military.
“For God’s sake, stop making our military take gender pronoun classes. It’s demoralizing to them,” she said.
She also warned about China’s strengthening military, especially its Naval fleet.
“China has 350 ships. They'll have 400 ships in two years, she said. ”We won’t have 350 ships in two decades.”
While accusing the Biden-Harris administration of “dereliction of duty” for allowing the flood of illegal immigrants into the United States, Mrs. Haley also talked about the frenzy of crimes she witnessed during a 400-mile tour of the southern border, including known “rape areas” women and girls are forced to traverse if they choose to enter the country illegally.
“You are not ready for what I saw,” said Mrs. Haley. She said when she met with border patrol, they told her they felt like “glorified babysitters” because the Biden administration won’t let them do their jobs.
Among her proposed fixes to curb illegal immigration is an “e-verify program” that would mandate American employees verify that any worker they hire is in the country legally.
Mrs. Haley also called for a need for tough-on-China policies, including a threat to ban any further trade with the country until it stops the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
She capped off her midday visit to Bedford by clarifying her position on abortion. As she has said many times during her campaign “she is unapologetically pro-life” but does not support an absolute ban on abortion. She instead favors middle-ground legislation that would eliminate late term abortions while increasing support for pregnant women.
