Nikki Haley on The Story With Martha MaCallum

Joins us now, Governor Haley. Always good to see you. Thank you very much for joining us today. Great to be with you. Thanks so much, Martha. So give us a sense, you know, we talked in Iowa, we talked to New Hampshire, and, you know, the gap was larger, obviously, in Iowa than Trump beat you by about 11 points in New Hampshire. So how much would you have to close this gap, which is about 26 points apart, in your home state of South Carolina, in order for you to say, I'm going to keep going? Well, first of all, I think you have to go back to New Hampshire. We moved 25 points in the three weeks prior to the election in New Hampshire. If you're going to talk about this poll today, I would say that you should also talk about the Quinnipiac poll that came out yesterday that showed that Donald Trump loses to Biden by seven points, and I beat Biden by more than seven points. So, you know, the fact is, this comes down to Trump lost in 2018, he lost in 2020, he lost in 2022. How many times do we have to lose to realize that we've got to get this right? When we look at the situation, we will have a female president. It will either be me, or it will be Kamala Harris. If you nominate Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, Joe Biden will win and Kamala Harris will become president. That's a fact. So what we're doing now is we're going around the state, we're reminding them that we passed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country. President Obama sued us over it, and we won. We're reminding them that we passed voter ID and made sure that we had 11% unemployment go down to 4%. We're reminding them that we did pension reform, that we cut taxes, and that we became the beast of the Southeast from all the jobs that we brought. South Carolinians remember that. They know Donald Trump was their president. They know what he did. They also know I was a good governor. We're going to show them that we can also be a good president. Well, sometimes it can be tough in your home state. You've got a record and you're pointing out your record, but people also have things they like and don't like when they have seen you in action. Right now, Donald Trump is at 62% in terms of who do you trust more to handle immigration. You're at 22%. The economy, 60 Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, 21. Even on abortion, he's at 35 and you're at 26. You do have three weeks, and as you point out, you had big movement in New Hampshire during that time. What do you think is going to be the single most important thing in closing that gap? And once again, how tight does it have to be for you to look at your supporters and say, I'm going to go all the way through to Super Tuesday? What's the measure for that? We just want to show that we're competitive. I mean, our goal is to go and just continue to narrow that gap. You don't feel that you have to win? I don't think we have to win. We have to continue to be competitive. We just have to continue to show that we're strong, and that's what we're going to focus on. But I think we also need to look at the fact that when you talk about what's happening on the border, and it's horrific, I mean, look at the fact that Donald Trump supported amnesty. I was the opposite. I did the toughest illegal immigration law in the country. I mean, there is a difference there. If you're going to look at the economy. How so? I'm sure he would take issue with that, Governor. So tell me how so. I mean, it's a fact. He did a proposal for DACA and wanted amnesty. That happened while he was president, the same way he proposed a 25 cent gas tax increase per gallon when he was president. The same reason that you look at the fact that he supported and praised President Xi a dozen times after China gave the world COVID. There are multiple things you want to talk about. He had a good economy, yes, but at what cost? He put us eight trillion dollars in debt in just four years. Our kids are never going to forgive us for it. So, you know, there's a lot of differences between this. And but more than that, do we really want to end up with two 80 year old candidates when we know that we need someone for eight years that's going to be strong and focused? Both 70 percent of Americans. We have to respect 70 percent of Americans said they don't want a Biden Trump rematch. The majority of Americans disprove of Trump and disprove of Biden. You know, when you look at that, when you look at the swing state polls, that's an issue. It's kind of a different story. But, you know, you have this grumpy old man campaign, which we can put up on the screen. People can take a look at just what you were just referring to, Governor, the rematch that nobody wants. But but it appears, you know, as much as we have all watched these numbers over the course of the last many months, that shows that people don't want this rematch in many ways. In the polling that we're seeing, it appears that they do, especially in the swing states where Trump is leading by a lot. He can't win independence. He can't win suburban women's. And there's a lot of other Republicans he's not getting. Think about the fact he did not get 43 percent of the vote, New Hampshire, in the poll yesterday from Quinnipiac. He's down seven percent to Biden. Go to Nikki Haley dot com. We're going to continue this movement. We're going to continue our fight. Our country deserves better. We can't continue in this chaos. And I'm going to make sure we get it. Let me ask you one one last question, because you know that the Trump team would say, that you got 30 percent or whatever it was of Republican voters, that you got a lot of independent voters and Democrat voters in New Hampshire. Do you think when I when I look at you in the independent vote, you're quite strong in this recent polling. So do you see that as a negative or as a positive when you look across the country? It's why I'm the only one that defeats Biden. Republicans have to quit pushing people away. This is a story of addition. We need everyone. We've lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. That's nothing to be proud of. We should want to win the majority of Americans. If I bring Republicans, independents and Reagan Democrats in, I'll take it. But you know what we do get to do? We win with double digits and we bring a mandate to get our country back on track to stop the division, to stop the chaos and to heal. This is not personal about Trump. This is about the fact we need to win and we will lose if Donald Trump is our nominee. I got to go. But quickly, what was your reaction when the RNC was trying to nudge you out and then they sort of changed their tune on it? If you can quickly, Governor. I mean, Trump was pushing them to do that. He wanted to be named the presumptive nominee. It was his people that did it. But I think it backfired. I mean, only two states have voted. The delegate count, you need twelve hundred and fifteen. He has thirty two. I have seventeen. I'm not going anywhere. We've got to go longer than this. We don't do coronations in America. We need to let the 48 states and the territories decide. We need to let them vote. And that's what we're going to do. Governor, thank you. We will continue to follow the candidates and speak with you along the way. Thank you very much, Governor. Good to see you. Go to Nikki Haley dot com. Join us.