The NPR Politics Podcast - Nikki Haley Suspends Her Bid For The Presidency

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

After a tough night with only one win on Super Tuesday, Nikki Haley announced Wednesday that she is suspending her Republican presidential campaign. We look back at Haley's impact on the race and ahead to what's next for her and her supporters.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey, this is Alan. I'm in Kachanaburi, Thailand, recovering from rotator cuff surgery I had in Bangkok. I'm just about to take a stroll on the railroad tracks on the bridge over the river Kwai. This podcast was recorded at 11.38 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday, March 6, 2024. Things may have changed by the time you hear the show, but hopefully a train will not have crossed the tracks the same time I was trying to walk on them. Enjoy the show. We need the music, the whistle. Am I the only one who's old enough to remember that? I've watched that movie. Having just helped my husband through rotator cuff surgery about a year ago, I wish him well and a good recovery.

Yeah. Hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent.

The campaign for president has taken another turn. Nikki Haley is out, leaving Donald Trump the presumptive Republican nominee. Last night's results from the Super Tuesday election made it clear that there is no path forward for the former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor. She addressed a room of her supporters this morning in Charleston, South Carolina. The time has now come to suspend my campaign. I said I wanted Americans to have their voices heard. I have done that. I have no regrets. And although I will no longer be a candidate, I will not stop using my voice for the things I believe in. Sarah, you are there in Charleston. You made it up there very early this morning. Haley launched her campaign a year ago,

and you've been covering the whole time, so it is fitting that you are there now. What stood out to you in her speech? You know, she addressed a room of really, I guess it was her supporters in the sense that it was her staff, mostly, and also some reporters, separately. But, you know, this was kind of an anticlimactic end to her campaign, I have to say. I'm in the room where she just made this

speech not long ago. Everything's being kind of broken down from the event. And, you know, normally she speaks to crowds in states like New Hampshire and Iowa and South Carolina. But this is the end of the road. Ending this campaign is something that I think a lot of people expected. You know, it's looked like the writing was on the wall for a while. But the biggest thing I noticed about what she said today is the fact that she did not endorse Trump, but she also didn't not endorse him. She said she doesn't feel bound by the pledge that she and other candidates who participated in Republican National Committee debates signed, saying they would support the nominee. She and others signed that pledge, but Trump did not, by the way. And, you

know, today she said again that she's going to make up her own mind. It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that. At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing. So she's reminding Trump that her voters wanted someone other than him. Yeah. And moreover, there's been a lot of speculation that Haley would perhaps run under a third party. But I mean, it seems like she made it pretty clear today that that is not in the cards for her. I mean, where question now is twofold. One, what happens to her supporters? You know, some of them told exit pollsters they wouldn't vote for Trump in November, even if he was the

nominee. People change their minds over time. So we don't know how many of her supporters will actually vote for Biden or someone else or stay home. But we also don't know what she's going to do. If she wants a future in the Republican Party, she's very ambitious. The fastest route to being president is to be vice president for someone who can only serve four years, and that's Donald Trump. So now we're waiting to see if she endorses. I expect her to endorse. Mitch McConnell just endorsed Trump. He's not a fan. Senator Lindsey Graham from her own state of South Carolina was very confident predicting that she will endorse Trump. She will find a way to do this, and she will have to do some version of kissing the ring. I don't know what it will be. You know, she was slow to sort of ramp up her attacks on Trump, but in recent weeks,

she has used words like toxic and unhinged to describe him. So, you know, it'll be interesting to see how close she's going to move back toward him if she does. You know, the historical rules of politics work until they stop working. And what we know from history is it would make the most sense for Donald Trump to pick Nikki Haley for the ticket. She came in second. She represents independent and moderate and suburban women voters. And it would be a kind of unity ticket.

She's a woman, a person of color. There are so many reasons why he should pick her, but we don't know how angry he still is at her for staying in the race. He issued a statement today where he said many of her supporters were radical left Democrats, even though he invited all of them to support him. So we're not sure how he feels about her. It's also worth noting there's really not that much of a difference between Haley and Trump on policy issues, maybe not foreign policy, but definitely on domestic policy. They're very similar. Yes, but the foreign policy differences were huge.

And this is what Joe Biden moved to take advantage of today when he issued a statement that said, there is a place for Nikki Haley's supporters in my campaign. I know there's a lot we won't agree on, but on fundamental issues like NATO standing up to America's adversaries, that's where the big difference between Nikki Haley and Trump supporters just frankly don't believe in. They don't accept that these are legitimate charges. But there is a wing of the Republican Party, a lot of the party establishment, as well as some independent voters who lean conservative, who don't like that. They're very concerned about it. And they saw hope in Haley's candidacy. Sarah, has Haley actually said that Joe Biden won the election in 2020? What she has said is that Joe Biden was the legitimate winner in 2020. She, like a lot of Republicans, has sort of left some wiggle room for herself by saying there were some concerns about fraud. There might have been some problems. This is something you hear from Republicans a lot who don't want to come all the way out and say that the election was not legitimate because most of them, frankly, know that it was.

Sarah, so more than 20 states have held a primary or caucus as of last night. Haley only won two, the District of Columbia and Vermont. In a statement today, Trump said Haley was trounced in yesterday's races, but she also got like 30, sometimes 40 percent of the votes in states throughout the primary. There is definitely a wing of Republicans who've made it clear that they don't want Trump again, or at least open to an alternative. What do you think happens to that wing of the party now? You know, her candidacy and her relative success, it did highlight this division in the Republican Party. And it was a big part of her pitch, the idea that voters wanted a Republican alternative who was not Donald Trump. And, you know, some of her support did come from independents, not from Republicans.

It's important to note that. But those are the kinds of swing voters that are important in a general election. Where they go from here, that is the big question. And in talking to voters and Daniel Kurtzleben, our colleague, who's talked to a lot of Haley voters as well and others, the thing we've heard over and over is just a real mix. There are people who say they'll vote for Trump. There are people who say they'll vote for Biden. The ones who say they'll vote for Trump are pretty reluctant about it. And a lot of people tell me, I just don't know what I'll do. And so both Trump and Biden's campaigns are going to be trying to win over those Haley

supporters one way or another. Well, let's take a break. We'll be right back. And we're back. Mara, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, as you mentioned, got in line today and endorsed Trump for president. But I wonder what you make about what happens to the rest of the Republican Party now. I mean, what do you see as Trump having to do to maybe get some of those Haley voters we were talking about, for example? Well, I don't think he has to do too much. I think a lot of the Haley voters are going to go to Trump because they're Republican voters and they're not going to vote for Joe Biden. I think we just don't know the percentage. There are a certain number of them that told exit pollsters that they would not vote for Trump in the general election, or if he was convicted, they wouldn't vote for Trump. I think that the simplest way to get them would obviously be to put her on the ticket with him. I suppose you could imagine another way where he somehow moderates his behavior and acts more like a disciplined conservative candidate, which, believe it or not, he actually did the last three weeks of the 2016 campaign. So he is capable of it. But if he continues to say that Vladimir Putin should do whatever the hell he wants to NATO allies and telling people that he'll invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, that might make it harder.

And Sarah, you know, Republicans neglected a candidate who did have a chance of beating President Biden. And instead, you know, they went with Trump, who has, you know, a lot more like sort of wild cards in his pocket. This is just another example of how Trump has broken the old rules of traditional politics. And I wonder what you make of the sort of choice that Republicans ended up making at this point. I mean, this was another big part of Haley's pitch. You know, she pointed out again and again that polls suggest that voters don't want another Biden-Trump matchup. And, you know, for all of the hand-wringing, many of us heard from Republican voters in the general election back in 2016 about how this was a

binary choice between Trump and Hillary Clinton. This year, they had many other options. And one of them was Nikki Haley, who, as you say, in many polls, as she's pointed out, she looks like a much stronger general election candidate for the Republican Party than Trump. But Trump is what the party wants. That's the most striking thing about this election season, how fast and completely the Republican Party has capitulated to Trump. And I think that having Mitch McConnell, who disagrees vehemently with Trump on many things, but first and foremost, foreign policy, got in line today and endorsed Trump, and that really put a pin in it. Well, before we wrap up this conversation, I do want to take a moment to just sort of reflect on

the sort of historic nature of Nikki Haley's candidacy to begin with. I don't know who wants to start there, Sarah. I mean, I wonder what your thoughts are on, you know, just the nature of her campaign and what she sort of signals about American politics, but also Republican politics right now. It was so interesting to watch her. You know, she's a woman of color who got farther than any woman of color has gotten on the Republican ticket. Or really any woman of color has gotten on the Republican ticket. Or really, any woman. I mean, Sarah Palin, of course, was the vice presidential nominee with John McCain in 2008. And since then, we've seen more and more diverse candidates, more and more female

candidates running for the Republican nomination in 16, for example, and of course, this year. But she would talk about that, but she would never lean into it too hard. She knew her audience. You know, Republicans, I would talk to Republican voters, and they'd say, especially women, like, I'm excited to vote for a woman, but sometimes you'd hear things like, I wouldn't vote for her just because she's a woman. And she talked about, you know, both her race and gender in that way, talking about the, you know, the American dream and this idea that anybody can succeed. But the reality is she was the first Republican woman and a woman of color to win a Republican

nominating contest when she won the District of Columbia this weekend and then Vermont yesterday. And just her prominence in the party is historic. So I think that's worth paying attention to. That's the show for today. A reminder, tomorrow we will be watching and reviewing the president's State of the Union address, and we will bring you the highlights from that in your feeds a little later than usual. I'm Ashley Lopez. I cover voting. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. Thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.