Nikki Haley isn’t giving up on the GOP primary race, but MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” panel on Wednesday agreed that at this point, she’s already “obviously looking forward ahead to 2028.”
Co-host Joe Scarborough said that if the GOP has a desire to “unite the party,” and win the election, then having Haley as a part of that administration is a smart choice.
“That’s not Donald Trump’s character,” Politico deputy managing editor Sam Stein said. “Expanding the coalition.”
“Yes, It’s called winning,” Scarborough quipped. “He can’t do it … He’s not being nice, he’s not being magnanimous.”
Scarborough then encouraged the audience and the panel to “Give Nikki Haley her due.”
“Haley is taking the incoming from Donald Trump, as Barack Obama would,” Scarborough continued. “She’s going state by state-by-state. This is something Marco Rubio was too much of a coward to do, this is something Rand Paul was too much of a coward to do.”
“Nikki Haley is keeping her head down and saying, ‘I’m going to keep going, I’m going to keep going harder at him and let’s see what happens,’” said the co-host. “Donald Trump hasn’t had to deal with that yet in his political career.”
New York Times assistant managing editor Elisabeth Bumiller noted that Trump is “not taking it well.”
“She’s really tough, tougher than the men have been so far,” Bumiller added. “She has enough money to go for some time at least.”
While it doesn’t look promising for Haley in this election, “obviously she’s looking to 2028,” Bumiller said.
Bumiller also noted the recent South Carolina primary in which Trump was predicted to win by 30 points, but only won by 20.
“So many of Nikki Haley’s voters said they would never vote for Donald Trump, like 60%,” Bumiller said. “So that again, bug warning sign for him.”
