Nikki Haley, looking for a message to curb Donald J. Trump’s appeal among Republican voters, took him to task on Sunday over the $83 million verdict for defaming a woman he was already dating sexual assault and said she “absolutely trusts” the jury’s verdict. for the author E. Jean Carroll.
Their defense of the jury’s verdict contradicted Mr. Trump’s claims that the legal proceedings against him amounted to a conspiratorial attack by Democrats determined to thwart his political comeback, rather than legitimate legal claims of misconduct. But she did not say that the New York civil judgment and arbitration award barred him from returning to the presidency, leaving the decision to voters.
Four weeks before what could be a crucial Republican primary in South Carolina, Ms. Haley is trying to navigate an extremely narrow and treacherous path, finding a way to reduce Mr. Trump’s influence over the party’s electorate without turning conservative voters decisively against her have destroyed other Trump critics.
Her taunts against him have endeared her to donors in both parties, filling their coffers and keeping her in the race. But a series of different messages has so far done little to actually attract voters.
“That fires her up,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, the only Republican member of the House from South Carolina to support Ms. Haley. “She’s in this thing. The experts say: Get out. Why? We only had two area codes. If she’s attacked in South Carolina then go for it, but she’s the candidate. She makes that call.”
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and Mr. Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations, continued her recent, more aggressive criticism of the overwhelming front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination. She has seized the opportunity in the weeks since their disappointing defeats in Iowa and New Hampshire to align his age with President Biden’s and tell Republican primary voters that both men face cognitive and physical deficits. She also directly addressed Mr. Trump’s “rants,” saying a “distracted” president is exactly what foreign adversaries want to see.
Ms. Haley has also sought to gently remind voters of the legal jeopardy facing the former president, without completely rejecting Mr. Trump’s repeated claims that the civil lawsuits and four separate criminal cases he is facing are political “witch hunts”.
“I absolutely trust the jury and think they made their decision based on the evidence,” Ms. Haley said in her interview, while Mr. Trump continued to call for “complete immunity” from prosecution and maintaining his innocence on his social media platform .
She added: “The American people will remove him from the ballot. I think that’s the best way to move forward, not let him play the victim. Let him play the loser.”
Mr. Trump’s attacks on Ms. Haley — he mocked her clothing, called her “birdbrain” and said she was “almost a radical left-wing Democrat” — appear to have boosted her fundraising and her willingness to stay in the race and win her certain sympathy within the party.
The super PAC backing them, the SFA Fund, announced Thursday that it raised $50.1 million in the second half of 2023, surpassing the amount raised by the main super PAC, the supported Mr. Trump. That sum would keep Ms. Haley “for the long haul,” said Mark Harris, chief strategist at the SFA.
Ms. Haley refused on Sunday to even consider giving up the race. While she said she needs to improve on her second-place finish (43 percent) in New Hampshire after South Carolina’s Feb. 24 primary, she didn’t say she needs to win in her home state.
“I have to show that I’m stronger in South Carolina than I was in New Hampshire,” she said. “Does this have to be a victory? I don’t think that’s necessarily a win. It definitely has to be close.”
Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, responded: “Once again, Nikki can’t name a state she can win.”
Ms. Haley’s search for a message is proving extremely difficult given a Republican primary electorate that tends to give Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt, said Dave Carney, a conservative political consultant who observed her flipping through messages in New Hampshire.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie sought to directly attack Mr. Trump’s integrity by questioning his commitment to the Constitution and calling him a threat to the republic. That only earned him the enmity of most Republican voters, and he dropped out before a vote was cast in the state he was seeking, New Hampshire.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tried to be Trump 2.0 — a younger, more effective and less chaotic version of the former president — but voters in Iowa and New Hampshire told him they preferred the original version.
Ms. Haley has tried a number of arguments as to why she is a better candidate than Mr. Trump: She has addressed his numerous legal problems; She has offered electability – she, not Mr. Trump, would beat President Biden by a wide margin, polls suggest; She said it was time for a new generation of leaders, an end to his old age, and told Republicans intimidated by conservative commentators that Mr. Biden had passed into senility and said that Mr. Trump was no different be; and it brought both men together as Beltway players.
“Trump has become an insider,” she said on Sunday. “That’s what matters. He cares more about pleasing the elected class than pleasing the people.”
This “elected class” has shown no inclination to turn away from Mr. Trump, who is now found responsible for the sexual assault of Ms. Carroll and has been ordered by a New York jury to pay her $83 million in actual and punitive damages to pay for her defamation, and next he must be convicted of business fraud that could cost him much of his New York real estate empire.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump railed on social media against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who “sat comfortably and confidently in court with her shoes off, arms folded, a Starbucks coffee and a big smile on her face,” anticipating the next big decision against him, which he preemptively dismissed as a “hoax” from a “rigged process”.
Tim Scott, the South Carolina Republican who was appointed to the Senate by Ms. Haley but now supports Mr. Trump, admitted on ABC’s “This Week” that phrases like “bird brain” were “far more provocative than mine.” , but he questioned Ms. Haley’s attacks on Mr. Trump.
“It is inappropriate to talk about a person’s age, especially when they are competent, qualified and ready to become the next president of the United States,” he said, suggesting that Ms. Haley was targeting the voices of older Republicans with her attacks had lost.
On Saturday evening, at a rally in Mauldin, S.C., Ms. Haley let her beef with Mr. Scott shine through when she told her supporters, “I’ll let you all deal with Tim Scott,” prompting a round of boos from the state’s junior senator.
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2024-01-28 22:45:50
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