Tim Miller On Nikki Haley's Endorsement of Donald Trump

Source:The Bulwark talking about Nikki Haley's calculating (my words) endorsement of Donald J. Trump. Who right now is Defendant Don and perhaps by next week will be Convicted Felon Don. But that's her choice for President of the United States anyway. Interesting notion of the rule of law.

"Nikki Haley's EMBARRASSING OUTRAGEOUS Excuse for Supporting Trump... Tim Miller explains why Nikki Haley's endorsement of Trump won't help Trump." 

From The Bulwark

"The former United Nations ambassador said she prioritizes a president who will hold enemies to account, secure the border and support "capitalism and freedom" -- and that while "Trump has not been perfect on these policies," that "Biden has been a catastrophe."

"So, I will be voting for Trump," Haley said." 

From ABC News 

“Unhinged,” “Not Qualified,” “Can’t Win a General Election”: All the Things Nikki Haley Said About Donald Trump Before Announcing She’ll Be Voting for Him in November

After Trump questioned why Haley’s husband, Michael Haley, was not on the campaign trail back in February, saying to supporters, “Where is he? He’s gone. He knew. He knew,” the former UN ambassador wrote on X: “Michael is deployed serving our country, something you know nothing about.” Then, in an interview on Today, she called him “unhinged” and “more diminished” than he was in 2016.

“Can’t win a general election”

Mentally unfit

Last year, without directly naming Trump (or Biden), Haley said the US should have compulsory competency tests for elected officials over the age of 75, saying, “In the America I see, the permanent politician will finally retire.” Earlier this year, she directly questioned Trump’s mental fitness after he appeared to confuse her with Nancy Pelosi. “They’re saying he got confused, that he was talking about something else, he’s talking about Nancy Pelosi,” Haley said in Keene, New Hampshire. “The concern I have is—I’m not saying anything derogatory, but when you’re dealing with the pressures of the presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this.” Later, she added: “My parents are up in age, and I love them dearly. But when you see them hit a certain age, there is a decline. That’s a fact—ask any doctor. There is a decline.” 

Voting for him is “suicide” for the country

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in February, Haley said that the idea of making Trump the party’s nominee “is like suicide for our country.”

Might not abide by the Constitution

Asked earlier this year if she thought the ex-president would follow the Constitution were he to win reelection, Haley responded: “I don’t know. I don’t—I don’t know…. I mean…you always want to think someone will, but I don’t know.”

A sexual abuser whom America is too good for

Haley wrote this on social media after a jury ordered Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll more than $83 million in damages for having defamed her by claiming she was lying about his assault on her in the ’90s.." 

From Vanity Fair

"Griffin, who worked under Mike Pence and Donald Trump, criticized Haley for saying she'd vote for the former president after dragging him during her campaign.

After regularly using her platform on The View to voice support for former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley leading up to the November election, former Donald Trump staffer Alyssa Farah Griffin has slammed Haley after the politician publicly endorsed Trump on Wednesday — despite Haley staunchly criticizing him over the last year.

The 34-year-old — who's also a regular CNN contributor — appeared this week on the network's Erin Burnett OutFront program to react to Haley's endorsement.

"It was disappointing but not surprising. She joins a long list of people who are deeply critical of Trump, who have said he was unfit for office, who have launched every attack against them that they could," but ultimately come back into the fold, Griffin told Burnett... 

Griffin speculated that "at the end of the day, careerism, ambition, and being able to have long standing in the GOP is more important to most politicians" than overall integrity.

When Burnett played clips of Haley criticizing Trump in recent months — including footage from a February interview in which Haley said "there is no way that the American people are going to vote for a convicted criminal" if Trump is convicted amid his ongoing legal woes — Griffin went in even further on the former South Carolina governor, who suspended her campaign in March." 

From Yahoo News

"I react to Nikki Haley’s endorsement of Trump. While I’m disappointed, I’m not surprised. Politicians have been putting their ambitions ahead of what’s best for the country for a long time. Now the question becomes: do her voters follow her? I’m not convinced most do. My take on... 

From Alyssa Farah Griffin

I'm going to paraphrase 1 key point that Tim Miller makes here: 

"Nikki Haley's voters aren't Nikki Haley voters. They were Republicans who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 who were looking for a Republican to vote for other than Donald Trump. They were anti-Trump voters who saw Nikki Haley as the vessel to voting against Donald Trump in the Republican primaries...

Pretty much everything has been said here. But imagine back in 2008 had the Democratic Party not just have nominated Barack Obama, who certainly ran as a mainstream Democrat in the general election and they nominated Dennis Kucinich in the primaries instead of then Senator Obama and Hillary Clinton. 

And Kucinich was talking about: 

nationalizing banking and energy, to go along with health care, as well gutting the Defense Department by 80% 

pulling out of NATO 

cutting off of Israel and endorsing Hamas 

and threatening to shut down Fox News and other right-wing media outlets, if he became President. 

But then Senator Clinton endorses Dennis Kucinich anyway. Even though in the primaries she said something like: "America can't afford to have an unhinged Communist as President of the United States." or words to that effect. That's how I see Nikki Haley. 

Look, I voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary in Maryland in 2008. But I see Nikki as the Hillary Clinton of the Republican Party. Someone whose very calculating, who takes hours, if not days, weeks even, who knows, maybe months, to make any basic decision. If she thinks her decision could effect the rest of her political and governmental career one way or another. 

As Tim Miller said, Nikki Haley thinks she has a career post-Donald Trump, perhaps even in a 2nd Trump Administration (if God forbid our long national nightmare turns into a Trumpian State instead) and she's thinking by endorsing anyone other than Donald Trump, or not endorsing anyone for President in 2024, her carer in politics and government is over. 

But as Tim Miller also said, unless Trump nominates her for Vice President and they win, her career is probably over anyway. And this will be really bad for her legacy, especially if Trump loses in 2024 anyway. 

But Haley is endorsing Trump in May, because I guess she still wants to be in the running for Vice President. But if it's still a 50-50 election in September or October, her endorsement would mean more at that point. Which goes again to her political calculator that says she's not expecting him to win. Her endorsement won't even be remembered 4-5 months from now, and she thinks she still has a career in the Republican Party post-Donald Trump. 

But as all the Republicans on this post have already said, Nikki Haley voters, are just people who voted against Donald Trump. And I would add they are not members of her political fan club. Unlike Trump, she doesn't have her own political cult. 

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