Nikki Haley on NewsmaxTV's National Report (FULL)

It is officially 2024, the year of the presidential election, a major one here. We are less than two weeks away from the first caucus in the nation. It's in Iowa. Then you're less than three weeks away from the New Hampshire primary. And if you're watching polls and you believe the poll numbers, former President Donald Trump essentially a lock to win the Republican nomination. Either way, that is not deterring any other GOP candidate who are staying the course again until the vote still stumping and still out there doing town halls and more. One of those candidates is the woman on your screen for the latest. We welcome in 2024 Republican presidential candidate, former Ambassador Nikki Haley. Welcome Ambassador. And thanks so much for coming on. You know, we've talked about the polls. We're going to get to those in just a bit, but the Iowa caucuses are coming so soon. We know there's a debate scheduled in Iowa and you have called out Donald Trump. He's not made an appearance at the debates this time around. You went on X and you said with only three candidates qualifying for the CNN debate, it is time for Donald Trump to show up as the debate stage continues to shrink. It's getting harder for Donald Trump to hide. Now, keep that in mind. We look at the polling here and there's a bit of distance between yourself and Donald Trump. Why do you think he should spend his time debating you on stage? Well, happy new year. You know, what I've said is, this is, you know, I don't want to see Trump hide any more than I want to see Biden hide. This is the time when voters are voting. This is the time when we need to be out there. This is the time when you need to answer questions. I've done over 150 town halls, taking all the, taking every question, shaking every hand. I'm the last person to leave. Iowans and people in New Hampshire and South Carolina, they want to see you. They want to be able to ask those questions. You have to go and show that you want to earn their support, not just expect it. And I think that's what we're seeing. We had hundreds of people at our town hall last night in Rye, New Hampshire. We're going to have hundreds now lining up to see us in Kingston. We're going to be in Iowa tomorrow. The momentum on the ground is strong. People want something different. They're tired. They want to feel like government's serving them and that they're not working for government. And in order to do that, we need to have a new generational leader that's ready to take on the problems with new solutions in the future. And I think right now, the problem is you've got Biden and Trump who aren't showing up, aren't answering questions of the voters, aren't standing with their opponents. And it's a problem that the polls are not as close as, or not as far away as y'all talk about. National polls don't matter. You look at Iowa, we're gaining on him. You look at New Hampshire, it's a close race or he wouldn't be running commercials against me. This is about having an honest debate, an honest debate about where we are on the issues, an honest debate about what Americans want, and an honest debate about what we can provide and how we can take our country forward. And right now there's a debate happening across more than 30 states on whether the former president should be allowed on the ballot for voters to be able to cast their vote for the former president Donald Trump. Many want to remove him from the ballot, citing January 6th, that insurrection clause used back in the Civil War era. Your thoughts on that? This has went through in Colorado, again, being appealed, and this has went through in Maine unilaterally from the Secretary of State in Maine, again, that being appealed as well. Where do you fall on that? Do you believe that Trump should be removed from the ballot, keeping in mind if he was removed, believing polling or not, that catapults you to the front? Well, I'll tell you, first of all, I think President Trump was the right president at the right time. I agree with a lot of his policies. I don't think he should be the president going forward because I can't, I don't think we can handle four more years of chaos. Having said that, I will defeat President Trump fair and square. I think it is horrific that we have people trying to remove an individual on the ballot just because they don't like them. The problem with this is don't open a door that you can't close. The Supreme Court needs to rule on this and rule on it quickly. If you've got Maine, you've got Colorado, now you've got Wisconsin talking about it. We can't have that. And the problem we've had with government, and this has been going on for years, is more and more they're telling people what to think, how to live, what to do, how to breathe, and now they're trying to decide who's right, who's wrong, who's good, who's bad. I trust the American people. The American people should be making every one of these decisions. Not politicians, not unelected bureaucrats, none of these people. And that's what's happened with our country, and that's what's happening with democracy. Give the voice back to the hands of the people. Let them make the decisions about how they live their life. And stop the arrogance of others thinking they know better than the rest of us. That's just not the case, and I think they need to throw these out immediately. You know, I've heard, Ambassador, you talk about your support for Donald Trump in the past, and you say now's not the time. He represents chaos. What do you exactly mean by that? Well, I think, first of all, you look and rightly or wrongly, whether you support him, and like I said, I think he was the right president at the right time. I had a great working relationship with him, but rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. Everybody knows it's true. Chaos follows him, and we can't be a country in disarray and the world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. That's just not what we need. We won't survive it. And this is about the fact that we have to go forward in a strong way. We can't afford any more of all of this nonsense back and forth. The American people are tired. They're dealing with inflation that's out of control and spending that's happening by Republicans and Democrats right now. They're watching the fact that only 31 percent of eighth graders in our country are proficient in reading. We need to get back to the basics with education. They're looking at all of it truly is a dereliction of duty on what's happening at the border. We need to secure the border. No more excuses. And they're looking at the fact that law and order has gone out the window and people just want our country back. But the only way we're going to get our country back is when we leave the negativity and the baggage behind and we look forward to the future with new solutions. We need to do this for the sake of our kids and our grandkids to make sure that we get America back, because we can never be so arrogant to think that we can go into a nail biter of election. If you look at any of those head to heads against Biden, Trump head to head on a good day there, even he might be up by two Wall Street Journal showed he's up by four. I'm in every one of those same general election polls. I defeat Biden by 17 points, 17 points. That's bigger than the presidency. That's when you're winning governorships, the House, the Senate, all the way to school board. Those are mandates to go and stop the spending, to secure the border, to get education back on track, to bring law and order. That's a mandate. That's what we should want going forward in the country. And we're only going to get that if we have a new generational leader. We can't continue with the that we've always had in the past. Really quickly, a comment on this. If you can, it's been announced that President Biden, the incumbent here running for reelection, as you know, I know you have your primary to get through, but if indeed does get to this point, he's going to kick off his reelection campaign in your home state of South Carolina at some point visiting Charleston, South Carolina, where nine parishioners were killed in a racist attack, which I know you are familiar with all too well. But your take on starting the primaries on the Democratic side in South Carolina and your home state? I mean, he's totally offended the people of Iowa. He's totally offended the people of New Hampshire. And the people of South Carolina are smart. They see it for what it is. And regardless of what state you're in, Biden can go to them and say the economy's great all day long. But everybody knows that's not true when they go to the grocery store, when they go to the gas station, when they pay their mortgage bill, when they see their insurance payments. Everything that we have to pay has gone up. And Biden has seriously contributed to that. So he can go and say that China is a competitor and we can go and see all of the intrusion that's happened in our country from China and say, no, China is not a competitor. They're an enemy. And we need to look at them the way they look at us. Biden has for too long thought that if he tells us things that we'll just believe him, that's not the case. We can't continue to have Biden. And let's never forget a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris. And that should send a chill up everyone's spine to think about a president Kamala Harris, because that's what we're really talking about. If Joe Biden wins. We know, again, all of these candidates are out on the campaign trail. You yourself, you've held a number of rallies and events and town halls at one of those in New Hampshire. Recently, you were asked what started the Civil War, didn't mention slavery as a cause. It's got a lot of responses. You know, we're just going to play the clips or audiences reminded and then we'll get your reaction. Here's that. What was the cause of the United States Civil War? I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run the freedoms and what people could and couldn't do. What do you think the cause of the Civil War was? In the year 2023, it's astonishing to me. And there it is saying, what do you want me to say about slavery? Goes on. I know you've been on a number of interviews after the fact. You've been asked about this constantly. If you just wanted to clarify what happened there and why was slavery not brought up in that moment? You know, in South Carolina, I mean, it's we have a deep history. Without question, slavery was a part of the Civil War. It goes without saying in South Carolina. We know it. We hear about it in school. We hear about it in where we live. It's just a deep part of South Carolina. We know that. I should have said slavery right off the bat. I took that as a given. And I went forward on the fact that it really going forward as we look to the future and the lessons of that is what was the role of government economically, socially, and what were the individual rights of people to have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do and be anything they wanted to be without a person or government getting in the way. We've always learned the lessons of the Civil War or that we don't ever want any stain like slavery to happen again. But the lessons going forward need to be what was the lesson in where government plays in that economically, socially, and the individual rights of every individual. I have said I should have said it right off the bat. I was overthinking it and I shouldn't have. But the reality is, you know, you're talking to a southern governor that removed the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds who dealt with nine amazing souls that we lost in a church who dealt with the fact that an African-American unarmed black man, Walter Scott, was shot seven times in the back by a dirty cop. And South Carolina was the first state in the country to come out with a body camera law. We've dealt with these issues many times. Every single year there was an issue that we dealt with it. But we didn't have riots like they did in Ferguson. We had vigils. We didn't have protests. We had prayer. And South Carolina got through it and showed the entire country what strength and grace looks like. Governor, if I could just jump in. Do you think, I mean, this is some conversations have come up in some conversations. The question about the Civil War in a town hall, do you have any comment on that and why that may have been brought up at a town hall amidst looking ahead that's looking back? I mean, look, every town hall we open it up. We don't screen our questions. We take questions from Democrats, Republicans and independents. And this is the time where we see opponents send people, different parties send people. There's a reason the Democrats have billboards against me in Iowa. There's a reason that they're sending out people to stir trouble. But look, that's the nature of the game. And we're going to continue to answer those questions. I think that's more important than anything else. And, you know, it was a mistake on my part to not say it immediately. I was thinking more towards the future. And that person wanted me to talk about the past. And, you know, I'll gladly on that. Yeah. And we appreciate you coming on and again, answering our questions. Former U.N. ambassador, presidential candidate on the Republican side, Nikki Haley joining us today. Thank you very much. We appreciate your time. Thanks so much. Go to NikkiHaley.com. We're going to do this. All right. Take care.