Haley: GOP ‘shouldn’t have followed’ Trump
WASHINGTON – After remaining relatively reticent for two months regarding former President Donald Trump’s claims that his 2020 election loss was the result of voter fraud, former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley rebuked the president she once served.
In an interview published Friday, Haley said Republicans should not have allowed Trump to take them down the road that led to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“We need to acknowledge he let us down,” Haley told Politico. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”
Haley, a former South Carolina governor who is expected to run for president in 2024, also predicted that Trump has no future in the GOP after the deadly riot in which Trump supporters tried to stop the count of Electoral College votes.
“He’s not going to run for federal office again,” Haley said. “I don’t think he’s going to be in the picture.”
She added, “I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far.”
Despite those harsh words for her former boss, Haley defended the president on Fox News less than two weeks after her condemnations in the Jan. 12 Politico interview.
Haley told host Laura Ingraham on Jan. 25 that while Trump’s reaction to his defeat was “not his finest,” he should not have been impeached after one of his rally crowds left his event and attacked the Capitol.
“What happened on Jan. 6 was not great. Does he deserve to be impeached? Absolutely not. I don’t even think there’s a basis for impeachment,” Haley said.
“They beat him up before he got into office. They’re beating him up after he leaves office. At some point, I mean, give the man a break.”
That assessment was in sharp contrast to her earlier statements to Politico. In that interview, she said she was particularly outraged by Trump’s attacks on Vice President Mike Pence for not having the “courage” to use his role of presiding over the Jan. 6 vote count to block the certification of the result – an ability he did not have in his largely ceremonial role.
Trump continued to attack Pence on Twitter even as the mob violently breached the Capitol amid calls to “hang Mike Pence.”
“When I tell you I’m angry, it’s an understatement,” Haley told Politico. “Mike has been nothing but loyal to that man.”
Responding to Haley’s Politico interview, Rep. Adam Kinzinger – one of 10 House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment – called out her vacillating take Trump’s responsibility for inciting the Capitol rioters.
“You can’t play both sides anymore Governor. Pick Country First or Trump First,” the congressman from Illinois said on Twitter.
Haley’s statements in the Politico interview reflected some of the sharpest criticisms yet of Trump’s post-election behavior from a prominent Republican and an even more stinging rebuke than her words to a gathering of the Republican National Committee the day after the riot at the Capitol.