This time around, Nikki Haley’s political calculations are different.
Not long ago, the ex-governor of South Carolina was claiming that former president Trump lacked the maturity, organization, and control to succeed in the Oval Office, calling Trump “unhinged” and unable to control his fury.
For her part, Haley stated in February that she was not going to “kisse the ring” before she dumped her primary candidacy. “The fate of my political career does not concern me.”
However, on Wednesday, she made the announcement that everyone was expecting—an implied endorsement. Although Trump was not “perfect” on matters that concern Haley, such as the national debt and foreign policy, she characterized Biden as a “catastrophe.”
“So, I will be voting for Trump,” declared the former US ambassador to the UN, who was a member of the ex-president’s Cabinet.
She resigned from her position in 2018 after a cordial photo op in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office to avoid being linked to Trump’s chaos. In the years leading up to 2024, Haley first denied that she would challenge her former boss for president, but she ultimately did so, much to Trump’s continued wrath.
Earlier this year, Haley attacked Republicans who supported Trump while secretly despising him, just before she lost the primary in her home state to Trump. What she meant was that “the herd mentality is enormously strong” in politics. “It has won over many Republican politicians….” Many lawmakers who have officially embraced Trump secretly despise him, though. He has been and will remain an embarrassment for our party, and they are aware of it. They simply cannot bring themselves to speak it aloud.
Just now, Haley is publicly declaring her support for Trump. However, considering the presumptive nominee’s dominance within the party, she had no choice but to follow the crowd. It’s the same conclusion that Ted Cruz arrived at; Cruz has long since become close to Trump, despite the fact that he publicly shamed Cruz’s wife. The current US Senate representative from Texas, who attended Harvard Law School, declined Wednesday night to accept the 2024 election results without conditions from HEADLINESFOREVER’s Kaitlan Collins.
Listen, I will concede defeat if the Democrats take the victory. “But I will not turn a blind eye to fraud no matter what,” Cruz declared before, in classic Trump form, citing unfounded allegations of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Conservative foreign policy hawks who persist in claiming that Trump is a threat to democracy have met their demise, as shown with former Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, who was once a rising star in the GOP.
In her pursuit of a secure future, Haley
As soon as Trump exits the stage, Haley will undoubtedly announce her intention to run for president again. Thus, there is no political benefit to rejecting him at this time; the only consequence would be to finish her career on an ideological note. Her selflessness would be praised by history, but she would probably never be able to attain power.
It will seem like Haley is constantly taking the political path that will help her achieve her goals, because that is exactly what she will do. But she can claim she anticipated Trump’s defeat if Biden takes the nomination in November. She has already gone on record as saying that a second Trump administration would be disastrous. She may then be in a position to attempt to steer the Republican Party toward its foreign policy and economic stances before Trump took office, which appear most in line with her personal views. Despite the fact that she frequently appeared in 2024 to be vying for the leadership of an unrecognizable party, she could be poised to do just that.
Bolton, who had previously stated that Trump ought not to be permitted near the White House again, expressed his disappointment with Haley’s decision. “I think she has obviously made a political calculation that it is in her interests to support Donald Trump,” Bolton told HEADLINESFOREVER’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday.
Among younger Republican presidential candidates with lingering aspirations of the Oval Office, Haley is not the only one to experience such a metamorphosis; she also emerged victorious in Vermont and the nation’s capital. After his campaign collapsed in cold Iowa in January, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blasted Trump before endorsing him on the way out of the race, much faster than Haley.
Haley demanded cognitive testing for candidates over 75 years old and said that 81-year-old Biden and 78-year-old Trump were not fit to be president during her campaign. Still, it’s fair to wonder if her supporters will go along with her choice to single out Biden’s flaws on Wednesday and not consider any other candidates.
Tens of thousands of GOP primary voters have kept voting for her since she canceled her campaign. Her campaign, in which she positioned herself as a conduit for Republicans who despised Trump and want an alternative candidate, has left an enduring legacy in this support. Where the former president has the greatest trouble is in the suburbs, where Haley performed really well. With this group of undecided GOP voters in mind, the Biden campaign hinted that it would challenge for their support come November. At a fundraiser in Georgia, a battleground state, the president assured Haley supporters that they would always have a home in his campaign.
At events in Iowa and New Hampshire earlier this year, a number of Haley supporters admitted that they preferred her, but that they would remain faithful Republicans even if Trump were to win the nomination. Even while Haley’s choice is rife with political expediency, many of her followers may be struggling with the same issue.
This election presents Republicans with a more nuanced choice than the last, especially those who are opposed to Trump but are considering Biden. As the current incumbent, Joe Biden has a record of accomplishments and policies that, on many fronts, including economics and foreign policy, run counter to the fundamental views of many Republicans. People also don’t remember the Trump presidency for all its mayhem. Some long-time national security Republicans may be reluctant to change their vote because they are concerned about the state of the world and Biden’s increasing rivalry with a right-wing Israeli prime minister. As a result of the Biden administration’s dismal performance, “a lot of Republicans are making the same calculation,” Bolton stated.
The motivation behind Haley’s decision is political
Speaking at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, Haley made her first significant political speech since suspending her Republican presidential campaign, during which she announced she would vote for Trump.
While doing a question-and-answer session, her statement appeared irrational. She had just given a stern speech that combined the neoconservative Bush administration with Reagan’s Cold War hawkishness, and here she was pledging to vote for a former president whose “America First” program had shredded both GOP foreign policy tenets. To safeguard the border, have “the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account,” and so on were the campaign promises Haley made. Despite spending four years berating US allies in Europe and Asia for freeloading off the United States, Trump frequently mingled with US enemies throughout his first term, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
The US alliances, particularly NATO, which Trump hates, have been revitalized and expanded under Biden’s presidency. More clarity has emerged inside the Western alliance recently than in the years following the Cold War’s conclusion. Although Trump claims to be a strong supporter of immigration, he recently vetoed the most restrictive border bill in decades—ostensibly in an effort to prevent Joe Biden from winning the election and maintain his narrative of a nation under attack.
Many are wondering, given Haley’s lackluster endorsement of Trump, whether she will agree to campaign for him and encourage her constituents to support him. Haley made it clear that she would be voting for the former president, but she also pushed him to reconnect with her constituents. Instead of assuming that the millions of people who backed me in the election will automatically remain on his side, Trump would do well to go out to them. She expressed her sincere hope that he would do that. Despite his critical need to win over suburban voters, Trump has failed to engage Haley voters in his quest for the nomination. In addition, he wasted little time dispelling rumors that the outgoing governor of South Carolina was being considered for the vice presidential position.
Any compromise between the two political rivals, however, would serve as a cautionary tale about the gravity of presidential primary campaign outcomes. Throughout her campaign, Haley veered dangerously close to both ends of the political spectrum. As Trump attempted to rig the 2020 election in order to remain in office, she spent months delivering only the most tepid criticisms of him. She, like other Republican contenders, failed to figure out how to compete with the former president, who enjoys enormous support from his base, without winning over his supporters. It became apparent that Hillary had no way to get the nomination, so she turned entirely against Trump in the middle of New Hampshire’s snowstorm as a final resort.
Haley criticized the former president for his “temper tantrum” the night of his New Hampshire primary victory, when he attempted to remove her from the campaign, and stated that Trump had some “confused moments” in the days leading up to the event in an interview with Jake Tapper of HEADLINESFOREVER on February 1. While speaking in Columbia, South Carolina, Haley posed the question to the audience: “Do you really believe he will prevail against Joe Biden considering the amount he is spending on legal fees?” Yeah, he’s not. Trump, Haley told Tapper on February 12, was “completely unhinged” and the ex-president sided with Putin over NATO allies, according to Haley.
Almost every time Haley spoke, she would moan about how “rightly or wrongly, chaos follows (Trump)”. “Restoring order is not an option; there is already too much animosity within our nation and too many global dangers.”
That “chaos” is, however, the one she will be supporting in November.
Nikki Haley’s Controversial Vote: Backing the Trump Turmoil…
