OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump believes that one of his closest rivals for the Republican presidential nomination — his former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley — would “sell out” the nation.
“People who fund Nikki Haley and Ron [DeSantis] aren’t working for your interests. They are working for the interests of other nations and themselves, and so are those two,” the former president said at a campaign rally in Newton, Iowa.
“‘I’ll never run against him. He’s a great president. Why would I run? Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve decided to run,” the former president said, mocking what the former ambassador said about campaigning against him.
“She came to Mar-a-Lago to see me to inform me that she’ll never run. ‘They’re all false rumors.’ But then she ran,” he said.
He said that Haley “would grant amnesty to [President Joe] Biden’s illegal aliens in her very first week. And, sadly, the establishment losers and sell-outs lagging far behind us in the Republican primary cannot be trusted on taxes, trade, or anything else.
“Like they betrayed me, they’re gonna betray you.
“One thing about a politician — their original thought is what they go with. They’re globalists, and they always will be. They can’t help it. And, you know, some people agree with them, but not a lot. I don’t agree with them. I think it’s horrible. That’s why we’re in such trouble as a nation,” he said.
He is not alone in his criticism of the former UN ambassador.
Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson criticized 2024 GOP candidate Nikki Haley for her strong stances on the war and labeled her as a “puppet” of the Washington political establishment.
Carlson blasted Haley in an interview with Ramaswamy that was published on X (formerly Twitter), accusing her of being just like Democratic donors. Carlson singled out Haley’s steadfast support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia and Israel in its conflict with Hamas (the U.S.-designated terrorist group that controls the Gaza Strip).
“If you’re a Democratic mega-donor, this is a very tough moment for you. Your candidate is going to lose,” Carlson said, referring to President Joe Biden’s poor polling performance in recent months.
“So what do you do? Well, if you’re smart, maybe you subvert the other party. Maybe you back a Republican candidate who’s a Democrat and whose priorities are identical to yours. And of course, they found one: Her name is Nikki Haley,” Carlson said, pointing to her purported support for “endless neocon wars.”
“Strip away all the outward characteristics, and Nikki Haley is identical in her priorities to Joe Biden and the people who back Joe Biden,” he added.
Although Carlson insisted that the support Haley was receiving was primarily Democratic, Ramaswamy argued that it was bipartisan and included Republicans from the Bush-Cheney era. This led Ramaswamy to back Carlson’s conclusion.
According to Ramaswamy, those individuals were trying to depose Trump by manipulating Haley.
“I think the true puppet masters, the thing about them, is they’re fundamentally nonpartisan in nature,” Ramaswamy said. “There are a few things they care about: Keeping the foreign war machine humming is high on the list. Keeping the administrative state’s control of the United States is also high on the list. They found a much more convenient puppet within the Republican Party itself.”
“It’s not Biden, and it’s not even Gavin Newsom. It’s Nikki Haley within the Republican Party itself,” he continued. “And I think that that makes for a very convenient frontman because then they have absolved themselves from any allegations of partisanship or Democratic partisanship against Donald Trump.”
In late December, according to sources who spoke to CBS News, Trump “has been asking allies and advisers for their thoughts about Nikki Haley as a potential vice presidential candidate.” Haley, who served as governor of South Carolina and as his UN ambassador, was the first to declare her candidacy for the GOP nomination after Trump had made his intentions to do so very clear for months.
“The feedback from the MAGA crowd regarding putting Haley on the ticket if Trump wins the GOP nomination has been overwhelmingly negative, according to these GOP sources. Politico first reported that Trump allies are working to quash the possibility of a Trump-Haley ticket,” CBS reported.
