Despite losses in each Republican presidential primary so far this year, Nikki Haley has pledged to stay in the race as long as possible. On Sunday, MSNBC’s Jen Psaki examined Haley’s attempt to be named the GOP nominee. She told her viewers that while no one has to agree with Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the United Nations “has been making a clear case against Trump in speech after speech. And that case is one of stark contrasts.”
“Trump is dangerous. She is normal,” Psaki added. “Trump is chaotic. She is stable. Trump is old. She is young. I mean, she’s not wrong on any of this.”
Unfortunately, this hasn’t exactly resonated with Republican voters. While Haley came away with 40% of the vote in both South Carolina and New Hampshire, it hasn’t been enough to seriously threaten the Trump campaign.
“But as we saw it again last night, for the majority of the Republican electorate, none of it sticks. None of it seems to matter,” Psaki said. “Because Republican primary voters including, again, the majority of Republican primary voters in Haley’s home state, don’t want or don’t seem to want a young, experienced conservative governor who delivers solid speeches and doesn’t appear to be unhinged. They want Donald Trump.”
Part of the problem, she added, is that Haley is “running for president as many, many people have before her in her Party and the Democratic Party” while Trump is not. “Trump is running for something else entirely. The office he is seeing — is eyeing, is looking to, does not resemble the Office of the President of the United States. Trump is actually running to end the presidency as we know it.”
Psaki argued that the former president’s comments have grown more concerning. “I mean, let’s just take the last couple of days, because just over the last three days, Trump gave three of the most bizarre, unhinged, bigoted, very hard-to-follow speeches I have ever heard him give,” she said. “He trivialized Black voters with a disgusting and racist rant on Friday night claiming that the Black community likes him more because he was indicted and has a mug shot.”
“I mean, he referred to himself as a political dissident on Saturday, which is an insult to real political dissidents around the world, which there are many,” Psaki said, with Trump’s comments following the death of Alexei Navalny under Russian leader Alexei Navalny. “He also cast November’s election as quote, ‘judgment day.’ That’s just a sampling, a sampling of the concerning nonsense we’ve heard over the past few days.”
Unfortunately for Haley, “Republican voters know that this is who he is. And they showed us once again last night that this is what they want,” Psaki added.
“They want the day one dictator, that’s what they want. They like the guy who echoes Adolf Hitler and idolizes Vladimir Putin. They want the promises of retribution,” Psaki said, noting that they wanted a leader who isn’t subject to the rule of law. “They want something different than democracy. And guys, I’m here to tell you that the only person standing in the way of all of that right now is this guy right here: President Joe Biden.”
