The NPR Politics Podcast - Nikki Haley Will Seek The Republican Presidential Nomination

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

The former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador is going back on her pledge not to run against her former boss, Donald Trump. And after years of controversy, including the presence of an alleged Russian spy, the storied National Prayer Breakfast is getting a revamp.This episode: political correspondent Susan Davis, political correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.This episode was produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. It was edited by Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi. Research and fact-checking by Devin Speak.Unlock access to this and other bonus content by supporting The NPR Politics Podcast+. Sign up via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey NPR, this is Emma and I'm at the finish line of the Miami half marathon where I just completed my race. Listening to NPR politics podcasts got me through all of my training runs so I thought it was only fitting to send a time stamp to celebrate. This podcast was recorded at 1 45 p.m on Wednesday, February 1st. Things may have changed by the time you hear it. Here's the show. I think that counts as all of us running the half marathon as well, if we were there with her training runs. That sounds right. Sounds right. I'll accept that medal.

Exactly. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I also cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is officially on. Former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley is running for president. That makes her the first major Republican to go in against former President Trump, who announced his own 2024 bid back in November. Her hometown paper, The Post and Courier, first reported the news and NPR

confirmed it. She's going to make it official on February 15th with a kickoff event in Charleston, conveniently located in a critical early state for winning the nomination. Danielle, you know, there's a lot to say about Haley, but she is joining a very small group of women and an even smaller group of Republican women who have sought a party's nomination. Where does she sort of fit into that narrative? Right. Yeah. I mean, she, like you said, she's part of a very small group of Republican women who have run for the presidency. In terms of just recent years, you only have had a few. There was Elizabeth Dole, who considered a run ahead of the 2000 election. There was Michelle Bachman in 2012.

She did run and dropped out just after the Iowa caucuses. And then, of course, there was Carly Fiorina in 2016. Now, there have been a bunch of reasons why women have not run in the Republican Party recently. Part of it is just that, you know, you first of all have a lot more men who support the Republican Party these days than women. The Republicans also just don't have a deep bench of women. When we talk about in recent years, lots more women getting into Congress, there are just a lot more Democrats than Republicans who are in Congress, for example. Similarly in governorship. So yeah, she is part of a small cadre of people. And one big question is how she will fare, because consider that last time a woman ran, Carly Fiorina, the guy who eventually got the nomination insulted her looks

and won the nomination anyway. It was a huge deal in 2016 how women were treated in that field. And one wonders how Trump would handle this. I mean, he is close to Haley. She worked with and for him. So it's a totally different game board. She obviously hasn't made her announcement official yet, but she's a pretty well-known quantity in politics. And I think one of the things that's interesting about her as a woman in the field is she actually is coming into it with a much more traditional path that men have used, right? Like she's a former governor. She's worked in the administration, which is a bit different than other Republican women who have run. But do you have a sense of sort of what her pitch is going to be or what lane she falls into within the Republican Party?

That's a great question. And the way that I would characterize her is she kind of straddles the Trump versus more traditional politician lane, right? When I was out on the trail ahead of the midterms last year, I would often ask Republican voters alongside whatever I was asking them about Congress and so on, I'd say, OK, how do you feel about various people running for 2024? And she's not top of mind for a lot of people. That's usually Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. But she's liked. The people that do know of her and do mention her like her a lot.

And those people do tend to be across the spectrum. There is some polling that shows that both megatypes and non-megatypes like her. The question is, though, how well can she continue to straddle that line? For example, she criticized Donald Trump heavily after January 6th and then later backtracked on that and said, well, the party needs him. So you have to wonder how much her loyalties will be questioned, first of all, by us in the media and also by her fellow candidates. Domenico, she's the first candidate to challenge Trump. There's a long list of folks who might also get in.

But usually this is the time of year in an open field where you start to see people announcing like left and right. It's certainly compared if you compare it to 2020. And one thing I'm thinking about is like, what's taking people so long? Why is it why are people seemingly so hesitant in this Republican primary race? Well, I mean, February is not usually that early for most of these things. But in recent years, they certainly have become that way. You know, I think that obviously Trump is the elephant in the room here. And a lot of people are curious and wondering what he's going to do. I think it's interesting that Haley is getting in because in April of 2021, she'd said that she wouldn't run against Trump if he were to announce that she wouldn't run for president if Trump were to get in. And she's doing that, which I think tells you whether or not polling data bears it out just yet

that Trump is more vulnerable. At least Republicans who have some want for power think that he's someone who can be overcome. And I think it's interesting because reportedly when Haley told Trump that she wanted to run, that Trump said, you know, kind of more power to you. You know, you got to follow your heart. And I think in some respects, it's a bit of a Machiavellian strategic move by Trump because he has a pretty strong slice of the pie. We used to say a titanium slice. Maybe it's a thawed metal a little bit more now. But, you know, he does have a very solid base and his best path to winning, though, is a solid plurality and a multi-candidate field.

Right. So from Trump's perspective, it's like, hey, Ron DeSantis, run. Nikki Haley, run. The more the merrier. Kristi Noem, run. Split up that vote. Yeah. Split up the anti-Trump vote and make it easier for him to win with a plurality. I hadn't thought about that, but that's a good point. Domenico, do you see a similarity here between what Haley's trying to do and what former Vice President Mike Pence is trying to do, who is also very seriously considering a run in 2024, in that how they navigate this Trump question. They were loyalists. They became critics. They're trying to build brand identities as separate from Trump in a post-Trump GOP in a party that the base is still

very loyal to Trump. I mean, the threading of the needle of this to be the non-Trump candidate in 2024 seems spectacularly hard to me. Yeah. And it's not like Trump is supremely disliked by a majority of the Republican Party when it comes to his ratings more broadly. Yeah. I mean, we've seen for years that a majority of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of the former president, but it's not the case among Republicans. It's not as strong as it used to be. And clearly the case that a Pence or a Haley or DeSantis will try to make is, you know, we like Trump, but it's time to move on. His brand is toxic. He doesn't win in purple states and we need less chaos. And that is certainly a case to be made. But when you have four of them making that case, it's a little harder for one of them to break through. And they all take a different kind of persona than a Ron DeSantis,

right? Like, yes, they were affiliated with Trump, but they are very much not Trumpy. They are not ones to come out and insult their fellow. Stylistically, yeah. Right. Whereas Ron DeSantis is, you know, he's as as we call him in the media, you know, a firebrand. He has been fomenting these culture wars in Florida heavily lately. And he likes the attention. He's splashier. So it's there are all sorts of different gradations we could get out here. And I do think that we have to keep an open mind about the potential for Trump actually losing, because, you know, if frontrunners were the thing that won, we would still have that Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani 2008 presidential matchup that we're all still waiting for.

It's early. Or Jan Bush 2016. Exactly. It's early, but we're ready for it. So I'm sure we'll be talking a lot more about the Republican primary field in the months and now years to come. So let's take a quick break. And when we get back, we're going to talk about how politics has affected the National Prayer Breakfast. And we're back.

And the National Prayer Breakfast has been a fixture in American politics for decades now. Its intention is to bring politicians from both parties together for a Christian-based unity event. But Domenico, in recent years, this event has become the source of growing concerns among both Republicans and Democrats about its influence and its mission. So what happened along the way? Yeah, I mean, this thing kind of ballooned. I mean, it's been around for 70 years. Dwight Eisenhower in 1953 was the first president to actually attend one of these, convinced by Billy Graham, the Christian evangelist, who then became this kind of preacher to power, where he has been in the ear of presidents, had been in the ear of presidents for decades, as well as his son, Franklin Graham, who are really kind of instrumental in continuing this breakfast. And really, it has been Christian

evangelical-based, but there have been a degree of scandals over the years that have taken place, whether it's fundraising or the types of people who were in attendance at these prayer breakfasts. I mean, we're talking about up to 3,500 people, many of whom were actually from abroad, and one who was a Russian spy, Maria Butina, in 2018, charged by the Department of Justice as a Russian spy, spent 18 months in American prison. And she attended the prayer breakfast in 2016 and 2017. And for a lot of Democrats, they just stopped going. They boycotted the event. Tim Kaine was one of those, for example, from Virginia. And he said he's going to return to this one because of how he feels it's been reformed. So to be clear, it's not any issue with the faith or the religiosity. It's about sort of the structure of the organization and how that

might have been compromised or turned into like a bit of a boondoggle. Definitely. And I think they wanted to put some walls up around members of Congress to not have potential conflicts of interest. So this year, you're going to have about 300 attendees, members of Congress to not have potential conflicts of interest. So this year, you're going to have about 300 attendees, members of Congress and their plus ones. And it's moved from a Washington, D.C. hotel to the Capitol itself, to the Capitol Visitor Center. And the only people allowed into this room are going to be people who are members of this board, of this new group that's run by former Senator Mark Pryor, as well as these members of Congress, the president, and their plus ones. Dominico, I realize that people are not required to go, but every president, like you said, since Eisenhower has gone, how is this not a violation of church and state in some way?

Well, I mean, that's been a thing that's kind of come crumbling down quite a bit over the last several years, as we've seen repeatedly over and over again, whether it's been at the Supreme Court or whether it's been with members of Congress and the kind of policies that they have pursued or they're openly speaking about the kinds of religious groups that they work with. I mean, there are groups that have fought against this. And we should note that this is coming again at a time when people who are claiming to be religiously unaffiliated is on the rise. Some 30 percent of the country say that. But this is still, you know, a bit of a pressure game where politically it doesn't look so good for a

president to skip a kind of event like this that's supposed to be bipartisan, that's supposed to be pious, but it really doesn't have the feel of a kind of interfaith, non-denominational event because the group that has been formed, the new National Prayer Breakfast Foundation, that is supposed to be a new legal entity to kind of wall itself off from the old group, has a lot of board members who are of the family, the group that had run this previously. There are questions still about the donations that they've taken in and who's given to them at this point. And, you know, very principally on their website, they talk about Jesus of Nazareth and talking about his principles.

So while they're saying all are welcome, it certainly has that sort of Christian evangelical roots at heart still of this event. It is interesting to me, though. I mean, when we talk about evangelical Christians, at least through the lens of politics, they certainly tend to vote more conservative and be more of a reliable voting bloc. But this is also a foundation in a group that is currently run by a Democrat. Yeah. Well, you know, you have a Democrat in Mark P group that is currently run by a Democrat. Yeah. Well, you know, you have a Democrat in Mark Pryor who's a Southern Democrat, the likes of which have gone almost extinct in the U.S. Congress. were very religious and who would attend these kind of Wednesday prayer breakfasts

that are held closed door on Capitol Hill in the House and in the Senate. And it's been less so over the years, given the resorting of our politics and the regionalization of our politics, although there are Democrats who are still principally involved here. And one person I'm thinking of is Chris Coons of Delaware. He's a senator close ties to President Biden. I talked with him this week because he was really involved in trying to create this new foundation to give more of a sense of reform. And I asked him about why he decided that a change needed to be made. When Senator Lankford and I were co-chairs of the National Prayer Breakfast a number of years ago, there were a lot of questions raised about

the finances, about who was invited, about how it was structured. And we frankly had to admit as co-chairs, we didn't know as much as we felt we should have. So he's talking there about Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma when the two of them chaired this breakfast. And, you know, it really had become very unwieldy. And it's really not a good look when Congress isn't able to know who's in the room, including potentially Russian spies at one point. Danielle, we talk on the podcast so much about the dividing lines in politics, specifically how much we've talked about gender and education levels and how that can determine your politics. And I'm thinking we probably don't talk enough about how's fascinating when you talk about religion, let's just pare it down to Christianity, which is largely what we're talking about in this conversation, is that, for conservative, heavily Republican. Black evangelicals tend to vote Democratic. So there's a lot of overlaying pieces there. And one more thing that all of this makes me think about is the conversations we have on this podcast about

how much political identities are starting to subsume other identities. I'm thinking about a pastor, a white evangelical pastor I talked to a couple years back, who told me, you know, it seems like sometimes people's republicanism is driving their beliefs in this church rather than this church driving them to the Republican Party, you know? I have heard something like that from. It is where it has become the case to a fairly big degree that if you're a white evangelical, you are just thought of as a Republican and that those beliefs necessarily overlap. That's not necessarily true. And so there's very much a cycle going on there. And this is something that we especially see in, and I'm sure we'll be talking about as 2024 approaches as these Republicans try to battle it out to be the leader of the party. We'll have to end there and we'll be back in your feeds tomorrow. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics.

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben. I also cover politics. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thanks for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.