GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley responded on Sunday to pressure to love or hate former President Trump, claiming that typical voters care more about issues.
Coming off a key endorsement by New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, Haley slammed the media’s preoccupation with Trump.
“You guys are exhausting. You’re exhausting in your obsession with him. The thing is, normal people aren’t obsessed with Trump like you guys are,” Haley said of the media during a sit-down interview with ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that aired on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “The normal people care about the fact that they can’t afford things. They feel like their freedoms are being taken away. They think government is too big. I know you all want to talk about every single word he says and every single tweet he does.”
“That’s exactly why we need a new generational leader,” Haley, who was Trump’s U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, continued. “Because people don’t want to hear about every word a person says or every tweet. They want to know how you fought for them that day, and they want to know how their life is going to be different. And life would be a whole lot different if the media would stop this obsession with Trump.”
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, with Gov. Chris Sununu, speaks to reporters following a town hall campaign event, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023, in Manchester, New Hampshire. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Haley’s remarks came after Karl pressed her on Trump campaigning on the idea of “retribution,” which Sununu argued distracts the media and voters from Trump’s record.
“He does everything he can not to talk about issues. He almost acts like he wasn’t there. He doesn’t want to talk about building the wall and securing the southern border because he didn’t do it,” Sununu, interviewed alongside Haley, said of Trump. “He doesn’t want to talk about fiscal responsibility because he made a hard promise that he would do it in that debate, ‘I’m going to be known as the most fiscally responsible president this country’s ever seen’. He said he balanced the budget. Yeah, didn’t even try to balance the budget. And you know, the thing that for someone in New Hampshire where, you know, it’s not about big government, we love the idea that he was going to drain the swamp. That was an amazing opportunity. Didn’t even try. I mean, literally didn’t even try. So if he talks about those issues, he has to kind of own those failures. So he’s always going to talk about retribution and just kind of try to spur something up.”
Nikki Haley took aim at the media “obsession” with former President Trump. (AP)
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Earlier in the interview, Haley also addressed pressure from those who wished she would take a strong stance regarding Trump.
“Anti-Trumpers want me to hate him, pro-Trumpers want me to love him, but this is where I stand. There are things I agree with the president on. I had a good working relationship with him. There are things I don’t agree – I don’t agree with the fact that, yes, we had a good economy while he was there, but he put us $8 trillion in debt that our kids are never going to forgive us for. I don’t agree with how he handles national security. He focused on trade with China, but he did nothing about the fentanyl flow. He did nothing about the fact that fentanyl has killed so many of our Americans.”
Nikki Haley speaks at a town hall after receiving an endorsement from Gov. Chris Sununu, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023, in Manchester, New Hampshire. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
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Positioning herself for the GOP endorsement, Haley said Trump “was the right president at the right time,” but stressed, “the world is on fire and chaos follows him, and we can’t have a country in chaos for four more years, so we won’t survive it.”
