Tangle - Nikki Haley is running for president.

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Yesterday, news broke that the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley will be announcing an official campaign for president on February 15 at a launch event in Charleston. Haley, 51, was South Carolina's governor for six years before she joined former President Donald Trump's White House to serve as ambassador to the United Nations. Haley is the first Republican to formally enter the race against Trump, who announced his plans to run shortly after the 2022 midterms.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here. Today’s clickables: Quick Hits (0:48), Today’s Story (2:36), Right’s Take (6:11), Left’s Take (11:24), Isaac’s Take (16:16), Your Questions Answered (19:25), Under the Radar (21:27), Numbers (22:22), Have A Nice Day (23:15)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Zosha Warpeha. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place we get views from across the political spectrum. Some independent thinking without all that hysterical nonsense you find everywhere else. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and today we are going to be talking about Nikki Haley, who has thrown her hat in the ring in the 2024 presidential race. Before we jump in, though, as always, we'll start off with some quick hits. First up, the FBI said it did not find any additional classified documents in its search of President Biden's Rehoboth Beach, Delaware home. Number two, the Fed raised its interest rates by 0.25 percent, slowing down its rate hikes, which had previously been 0.5 percent and 0.75 percent. Number three, President Joe Biden and

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met yesterday to begin negotiations on the debt ceiling. Number four, former President Donald Trump revealed a set of proposals to ban gender-affirming care for minors and cut off federal funding for schools that teach critical race theory. Number five, on Wednesday, the college board released the curriculum for its new advanced placement African-American studies course and excluded requirements to teach Black Lives Matter or reparations, which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is preparing to announce her run for president. According to people familiar with the situation, she could release a video indicating her plans as soon as this week. Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who served as President Trump's ambassador to the United Nations,

is planning to announce her own run for the White House on February 15th. She'll go up against her former boss, currently the sole Republican, seeking the 2024 Republican nomination. And former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley is expected to make it official. Later this month, the Republican is set to announce her candidacy for president. If Haley wins the nomination, she would be the first woman at the top of the Republican presidential ticket and the first non-white GOP presidential nominee. Yesterday, news broke that the former South Carolina governor will be announcing an official campaign for president on February 15th at a launch event in Charleston.

Haley, 51, was South Carolina's governor for six years before she joined former President Donald Trump's White House to serve as ambassador to the United Nations. Haley is the first Republican to formally enter the race against Trump, who announces plans to run shortly after the 2022 midterms. The news comes just days after Trump went to South Carolina for the beginning of his 2024 campaign, where he appeared alongside current governor Henry McMaster. Haley's entrance to the race confirms longtime speculation that she had presidential ambitions. She came to national prominence in 2015 after a mass shooting at a black church in South Carolina when she joined

a movement to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse. She initially expressed opposition to Trump's candidacy, though she eventually expressed her support for him before the 2016 general election. In 2018, Haley left Trump's White House citing fatigue after two years on the job. Some onlookers believe she would run against Trump in 2020 or join his ticket as vice president, replacing then-vice president Mike Pence. But in the wake of the January 6th riots, Haley once again expressed doubt that Trump would ever be re-elected, while pledging not to run against him if he decided to seek the office again in 2024. Trump told a radio station in South Carolina that Haley called him to

ask permission before entering the race, and that Trump told her if her heart tells her to do it, she should go do it. Haley, the daughter of two Indian immigrants, would be the party's first woman atop the ticket and first non-white candidate were she to win the nomination. She is viewed as a solid conservative and longtime defender of American interests abroad, capable of bridging the gap between some traditional conservatism and Trump-style foreign policy. While she was ambassador to the United Nations, the United States pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal. She's also been criticized for regularly changing her political positions, especially on Trump. Since leaving the Trump White House, Haley has returned to South Carolina and

joined the board of Boeing while hitting the speaking circuit, where Reuters reports she is commanding fees as high as $200,000. She has also written two books since leaving the White House. Today, most national polls show her with single-digit support from Republicans, though some Republican pollsters believe she could shake up the race significantly. We're going to take a look at some reactions to her candidacy from the right and the left, and then my take. First up we'll start with what the right is saying. Many on the right are skeptical of her odds and curious about what position she'll stake out in the race. Some criticize her as an establishment figure and political opportunist. Others warn not to underestimate her, given some

of the polling we have. In National Review, Jeffrey Blahar expressed skepticism about Haley's candidacy. My initial reaction, as memorialized on Twitter, was, well, okay, but why? The answer to that is simple enough in one way. Why not, Blahar wrote. As a two-term governor of an early primary state, one with credentials that could be pitched either to more establishment-minded GOP voters like serious executive, foreign policy credentials, never dying with Kanye post-antisemitism, or to Trump supporters she served in his administration as his UN ambassador, she can certainly tell a story about how she is a dark horse competitor for the nomination, especially if Trump should fail to gain

traction in his revanchist campaign. Upon further consideration, however, the case becomes weaker. Haley is a politician long out of her executive spotlight. The story of how she rose to governorship of South Carolina is quite the improbable tale, involving prior governor Mark Sanford's endorsement of her as his successor after his legendary decision to hike the Appalachian Trail. She inspires no strong feelings among voters, most of whom are unaware who she is, except for a vaguely uneasy sense that her opportunism, in particular her variant relationship with Trump and the administration she served in, marks her as someone without locatable core principles, he said. She checks

certain demographic boxes, can deliver a reasonable stump speech, and has a record as an executive. All of these threshold qualifications will melt away into nothingness the second she makes a play for the loyalties of Trump supporters, and Trump reminds those same voters of her disloyalty to him. In the Washington Examiner, Tiana Lowe said her long-shot candidacy is nothing like the delusions of former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan. The increasing number of Republicans wishing to move on from Trump, who will be 78 on election night, are rightly terrified of a clown car primary like the one that almost cost Biden his 2020 nomination, and thus the Democrats their eventual victory. Based on the polling,

DeSantis is the surest bet for the statistical majority of Republicans ready to move on from Trump, Lowe said. But can Haley coalesce a plurality, or would she simply serve as a spoiler? With the Florida governor front of mind to voters, Haley is currently a long shot in the polls. A Trafalgar poll in the Palmetto State gives its junior U.S. Senator Tim Scott 14.3% of primary support, with Haley garnering just 11.6%. In a 10-candidate field nationally, a poll by the Bulwark of all places ties Haley with Liz Cheney at a mere 4% each. But that doesn't mean Haley's long-shot bid is tantamount to the 2024 delusions of someone like Larry Hogan or Liz Cheney. Go back to her favorables, and it's clear that Haley doesn't have a clear ceiling, she added. That Bulwark poll found that 47% of Republicans

overall and Trump voters have a favorable opinion, with only 6% of GOP respondents having an unfavorable opinion. Compare that to Cheney, who is considered unfavorable by a majority of Republicans. Does Nikki Haley have a chance of winning the Republican presidential primary? It's certainly too early to say, but critics would point out that her numbers don't look great, either to win the entire primary or to galvanize the field against Trump. In 2021, shortly after Haley condemned Trump for January 6th, Christopher Bedford captured a common sentiment in The Federalist, writing that Haley was a social-climbing political opportunist. This has been true since before she even entered the national consciousness, but she blessed us with a quick refresher course Thursday when she condemned President Donald Trump

during a dinner speech to the Republican National Committee's annual winter meeting, he wrote. Most of those resigning will advertise this as a brave decision, but it's tough to pin a medal on spending the remaining two weeks of the president's term trying out for a job on CNN. But wannabe President Haley isn't focused on such tiny ambitions, nor is this her first time earning quick points condemning Trump. The New York businessman is everything a governor doesn't want in a president, she told a reporter before South Carolina's 2016 Republican presidential debate. She made sure to glare for the cameras when they came around for the big day. But circumstances and opportunities change, he said. This is why two weeks before the 2016 election,

Haley told reporters she'd be voting for the Republican nominee even though his campaign was, quote, embarrassing and had, quote, turned her stomach upside down. Her decision, she publicly lamented, was not an easy one, despite it being precisely the easiest and safest decision available to a professional Republican who still wanted to be president someday. By the end of November, she'd said she'd accept his nomination to ambassador to the United Nations, a job that gave her the foreign policy experience and spotlight she needed to keep her name in the running for future president. All right, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying. The left is critical of Haley's flip-flopping and

curious to see if she can win over any Trump voters. Some worry that another big field of Republicans could ultimately help Trump. Others lament the possibility that Haley could become the first female president. Stephen Collinson wrote about the potential historic nature of her candidacy, but also that a divided field could help Trump. Increasingly clear indications of several forming campaigns are notable because they appear to show that Trump, who's been the most influential force in the GOP ever since 2016, is not so prohibitively formidable that he cannot be challenged by serious rivals, Collinson said. Still, having multiple rivals would help Trump, as it did in 2016, since the winner-take-all nature

of most Republican primaries allows a candidate with a mere plurality of votes to build up big delegate leads in a crowded field. In other words, if Trump can split the opposition, he can win the primary. But that's no guarantee for the general election, given that the twice-impeached former president left Washington in disgrace after trying to steal an election and fomenting a mob attack on the U.S. Capitol. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal

web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.

It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at FluCellVax.ca. Haley's expected campaign launch will highlight a potential persona with considerable appeal as Republicans wonder how to broaden their coalition and their general election loss in 2020. Haley has an advantage as the former governor of a southern state that could be one of the most decisive primary battlegrounds, and her career has long been on a trajectory to a presidential race, he said. Her candidacy would bring the historic potential of the first woman in the Oval Office and her South Asian heritage could help the GOP win back women and more moderate voters. She added some foreign policy experience to her resume with a spell as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump. And unlike many of his cabinet members, she engineered a smooth exit from the Trump administration on her own terms.

she engineered a smooth exit from the Trump administration on her own terms. In the Washington Post, Erin Blake examined her 2024 prospects. Haley departed as governor to become Trump's ambassador to the United Nations, and in that role, she could craft a uniquely independent and popular brand. A 2018 poll shows she was the rare Trump administration official who was well-regarded on both sides of the political spectrum, he said. Thanks to Democrats approving of her job performance 55% to 23%, her overall approval split was 63 to 17, better than even that of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. But that role also allowed Haley to pick her spots, largely avoiding the glaring spotlight that followed

many Trump administration officials and congressional Republicans. And even as that tenure set Haley up for a presidential run, she struggled to capitalize on her stature, offering very conflicting signals about her path forward. There is, of course, Haley's remarkable flip-flop on Trump after January 6, 2021. In a lengthy profile by Politico's Tim Alberta, she essentially declared in the insurrection's aftermath that Trump was done and that the GOP should be done with him, but then rather swiftly realigned herself with the former president, Blake said. She even said at one point in 2021 that she wouldn't run in 2024 against him, a pledge that is obviously gone by the wayside. It's almost a cliche at this point to note such

conflicting messages from Haley, but running for president means presenting your case to voters on an extremely regular basis and expounding on your vision at length in a way Haley has yet to do, even in two campaigns for governor. In Jezebel, Caitlin Cruz criticized her candidacy and scorned the idea she could be the first woman president. Personally, I will always remember Haley for her steadfast belief that women don't care about contraception. When on The View in 2012, Haley made that bold statement to a room full of women who seemed to disagree. Haley said, quote, All of my policy is not based on a label. It's based on what I've lived and what I know.

Women don't care about contraception. They care about jobs and the economy and raising their families and all of those things. When host Joy Behar pushed back, because obviously people care about contraception, whether you want to plan for having a child or not, Haley backpedaled, Cruz said. Haley's more recent public statements will not inspire any more confidence in her ability to be a leader of the free world, she added. Let's roll the tape. While supporting eventual failed Senate candidate Herschel Walker last year, Haley said that his opponent, Senator Raphael Warnock, a black pastor, should be deported. Then there was the time Haley claimed, we've never in the history of this country

passed any laws or done anything based on race or religion. What? Huh? A person who has seriously claimed this and ignored the entirety of American history should not be allowed near public office. Needless to say, it would be incredibly ironic if this ended up being the woman who broke the big glass ceiling. Alright, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. As always, it is Tangle policy not to endorse candidates in any race, so I won't be doing that here. But there are some interesting elements worth noting. For starters, Haley worked for Trump and has somehow managed to remain on good terms with him. The vast majority of the people who had high-ranking positions in the Trump White House that weren't his family

have very publicly broken with him. His vice president is almost certainly going to run against him and has flamed him over and over in public. His first three chiefs of staff, Reince Priebus, John Kelly, and Mick Mulvaney, are now some of his harshest critics. Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director and Secretary of State, looks ready to run against him too and has mocked Trump's claims of victimhood. The list goes on. Yet Haley, who has gone back and forth between criticizing and praising Trump, has managed to enter the race with his blessing and with practically no blowback. That might be because Trump doesn't view her as a serious threat, or it might be because Trump understands that more candidates is better for him. He'll want a larger field to divide up the

anti-Trump vote. But I still wouldn't underestimate the value of this when you consider she needs to win over a good chunk of Trump supporters to win the Republican nomination. On paper, this alone makes her intriguing. She has the very rare triad of support from Trump voters, positive sentiment from establishment Republicans, and lower disapproval ratings from Democrats. That's probably a sign she can win over a lot of independents too. That's the encouraging news for Haley. Personally, what I like about her is that she has at least paid lip service to turning the temperature down on the national stage. As Aaron Blake noted in the Washington Post, Haley used the peak of

her popularity to deliver a speech to conservative students where she made the case against the own-the-libs mentality. That brand of politics, one obsessed with finding new ways to embarrass or shame your opponents rather than working on policy solutions, is one of my least favorite trends in our politics today. Haley seems to have seen, at least at one point, the poisonous nature of it. I know that it's fun and that it can feel good, but step back and think about what you're accomplishing when you do this. Are you persuading anyone, she asks? Who are you persuading? We've all been guilty of it at some point or another, but this kind of speech isn't leadership, it's the exact opposite. The less encouraging stuff is that, well, we don't really know what she believes.

Her actual policy positions are pretty hard to pin down, even on something as basic as, do you support Donald Trump? Aside from an America first foreign policy, which is a perfectly fine framework to build from, where has she been consistent? Her rhetoric on issues like race and immigration will give you whiplash. Her calling for a Democratic Senate candidate to be deported was a particularly cringeworthy low. And we've seen her go from insisting on bipartisan cooperation to claiming Democrats were mourning the death of an Iranian general, all in nearly the same breath. As for odds for success, I'd rate them as slim, but I've been plenty wrong before. Whether she has a real shot or not, this is probably going to function as the

starter's pistol at the track meet, and you can expect a Republican stampede to follow. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one is from John in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. John said, given what we have seen with the murders of George Floyd and Tyree Nichols, I've been wondering at what point a citizen could step in to interfere with the police. Is using force against a police officer ever warranted, legally or morally? First of all, we're getting dangerously close to stepping outside the kinds of questions I think are

probably appropriate to answer in this newsletter, but this one is pretty straightforward to me. Legally, no. Police in the United States have wide latitude on what they can do during an arrest, and if you intentionally get in their way, you'd be guilty of obstruction and probably end up getting seriously hurt, or getting someone else seriously hurt, either the officer or the person being arrested. I would never, ever try to physically intervene in an arrest or a physical altercation between a cop and a suspect. The same goes for using force against an officer if they are detaining you. As discussed in yesterday's reader question, the best thing you can do is comply and do what you were told. Deciding to use force against an officer literally gives

that officer the legal right to kill you. So unless that is a can of worms you're willing to open, I wouldn't. Whether it is morally justified, of course, is a completely different question that ties directly to whatever situation you are trying to intervene in. I can think of some hypotheticals to blow the doors off my points above. For instance, some police officers have been arrested for sexually assaulting women in their custody. If I somehow were to witness such a heinous act, I would obviously attempt to intervene in some way, even knowing the risks cited above. But that is a very extreme example, and I'd have to be sure I knew what I was seeing. All this being said, I think the absolute best route you can take if you believe you are really witnessing a crime unfold in front of you is simple. Record it, call for more witnesses, and do whatever you can to de-escalate the situation with your presence and your words.

All right, that is it for our reader question today, which brings us to our under the radar section. Hunter Biden's lawyers are employing a new strategy, attacking his critics. Legal counsel for the president's son have been urging federal prosecutors to launch investigations into Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, and others for accessing and disseminating his personal information. The lawyers claim about a half dozen people violated various statutes, like making restricted private information public, disseminating stolen property, and making false statements to Congress. They even threatened Fox News host Tucker Carlson with a defamation lawsuit if he does not correct alleged falsehoods he has uttered on air. The letters mark the start of a new and far more hard-hitting phase of the president's son's defense, just as House Republicans

plan to launch investigations into the Biden family. The Washington Post has the story, and there's a link to it in into the Biden family. The Washington Post has the story, and there's a link to it in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. In 2018, during her time as UN ambassador, Haley's approval disapproval rating among Republicans was 75 to 9. In 2018, during her time as UN ambassador, her approval disapproval rating among Democrats was 55 to 23. In 2018, during her time as UN ambassador, Haley's approval disapproval rating among independents was 63 to 19. The percentage of Republican voters who said they would vote for Trump in a primary race, according to a newly released Morning Consult poll, is 48%. The percentage of Republican voters who said they would vote for

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a primary race was 31%. The percentage of Republican voters who said they would vote for Nikki Haley in a primary race was 3%. But the percentage of Republican voters who said they have yet to form views about Haley was 44%. All right, and last but not least, our have a nice day story today. An animal shelter in Tennessee picked up a stray dog off the street that came with an unusual attachment, a note. Please love me, the note said. My mom can't keep me and is homeless with two kids. She tried her best, but she can't get help. I cost too much for her. She really loves me and I'm a great dog, the note said. The shelter staff posted about the dog Lilo on social media and hoped to discover her owner. About 24 hours, they got a call from someone saying they were Lilo's mom. The woman was homeless and the shelter offered to help provide

resources to continue caring for the dog, who she clearly wanted to keep as a companion. Now they are linking her up with services too. CBS News has the reunion story and there is a link to it in today's episode description. All right, that is it for today's podcast. As always, if you want to support our work, please go to readtangle.com and become a member. And a quick reminder that tomorrow is Friday, which means we are releasing a subscribers only Friday edition of the newsletter. So if you want to get that newsletter, you have to go to readtangle.com slash membership. We'll be back here on Monday. Have a great weekend. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by Zosia Warpea. Our script is edited by Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and Bailey Saul.

Shout out to our interns, Audrey Moorhead and Watkins Kelly, and our social media manager, Magdalena Bokova, who created our podcast logo. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75.

For more from Tangle, check out our website at www.tangle.com. We'll see you next time. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease.

Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu season? Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot. Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur,

and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.