(FULL) Nikki Haley on CNBC: Midterm Elections & 2028 Presidential Plans

Welcome back, everybody. The future of the Republican Party in focus after last week's midterm election outcome. Joining us right now is Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during President Trump's first term. Ambassador Haley, thank you for being with us today. We've had a lot of people who have given their assessment of what happened last week. What's your take on what happened? Well, good morning. It was a total power move by the American people. I think that they had had enough of inflation. I think they felt like no one was listening to them. They were tired of going to the grocery store and the gas pump and paying utility bills and watching interest rates go up and no one do anything about it. I think that they gave an opportunity. Republicans had the House, the Senate and the presidency for two years, And they saw no change in that. I think they wanted to make everybody aware, and they certainly did that. You know, now the focus is what do you do with that? I think, first of all, you know, Republicans need to hear the signs. You know, truly. When we use conservative policies, Republicans win, but that means fiscal responsibility. The spending has been out the window for a long time. That's got to be reined in. You've got to start focusing on getting people back to work. You've got a lot of Gen Z who are still out there trying to find jobs. Wages aren't keeping up. You're looking at wars in multiple places that are causing inflation. There's a lot that needs to be done. The best thing Republicans can do is act and show results. And Democrats don't need to be celebrating. Because it wasn't that Democrats won, it's that Republicans lost. And they just elected a handful of pro-terrorist sympathizer socialists that they're now going to have to figure out how to govern with. And where do they find their balance? So both parties are going to have to go into a self-correction. And both parties are going to have to prove to the American people that they deserve to lead going into 2028. Madam Ambassador, you were one of the strongest backers of the move on Iran. And that's what the that's where the inflation is. I don't I don't understand exactly what you're saying. Deal with the inflation, but like go ahead and back what happened in Iran, which was a direct cause of what the gas prices and the inflation are coming from. So how can you have it both ways? You are an ardent supporter of it, but now you're saying that they ignored warnings about inflation. How would you have what would you have done differently? No, it's a fair question. So first of all, you want to say, if you look back at what Israel and Iran did back in 2025, massive moves of really decapitating the Iranian regime, really taking away their missile capacity, taking away a lot of what they did. They were right to do that. Trump was right to go in and to try and stop this regime that has continued to say death to America and actually hurt, try and harm people on American soil. The difference is he needed and the administration needed to finish it. What they started to do was they stalled. They tried to come up with a deal. You can't make a deal with the Iranian regime. What you do is you buy them time to rearm, reload, get ready. What they did was they found leverage in the Strait. They started to use that. And once again, if you look at the amount of time that's actually been fighting, it's been very short. If you look at the amount of time that's been stalling. And waiting on a negotiation with a group that's never kept their promise, you are wasting your time. And so now decisions need to be made. And in all that time of waiting, trying to get a negotiation, what you did was the American people were suffering. This could have been handled very quickly, but it requires courage, it requires quick decisions, and it requires action and then get out. No one wants to see this be prolonged. And not only that, The one thing I will say that's most harmful... The Middle Eastern allies. They should be in helping this. Why are they not there? We don't need to be doing this for them. They need to step up and be a part of this. This is helping the region. They don't want the Iranian regime threatening them either. They've threatened them for decades. Where are they? And Trump needs to go to them and say, look, it's not us doing this. It's all of us doing this. You are either in this with us or we will just take care of us and go away. And so I think it's the mindset going into that. Situation that you don't want a long war. You want to make sure that the Iranian regime don't get money. I think the administration did a great job cutting off all economic access, making sure they restrain them, closing their shadow banking that was happening with the UAE. It took a while, but it should have happened from the very beginning. These are things that could have really eliminated all of this time of waiting. And even now. Trying to negotiate with them, you're not lowering prices, you're not making us more safe, you're not doing anything to get our American troops back home. Those are the things that need to change. Ambassador, I wanted to ask you separately. You talked about sort of Democrats and Republicans fighting. What do you make of the appointment of Stephen Miller as the president's chief of staff? And what did you make of the president's comments on 60 Minutes that he believed that on the immigration policy as it relates, I think, to ICE, that it has been too tough? I think the American people said that, you know, I mean, I think they thought, first of all, give the administration and Republicans credit for finally closing the border. I mean, all of that illegal immigration cost us in multiple ways from crime to. To citizens having to pay taxes and taking care of that. So they did a great job with that. But everyone saw that ICE overreached. And what happened was it was too much. It wasn't just going after criminals. It wasn't just going after gang members. All of a sudden, it was going into companies and they thought the overreach was there. And I think it was right that President Trump acknowledged that they went too far with that. And so, you know, I think that's a good move in terms of Stephen Miller being chief of staff. I mean, that's the president's prerogative. It's more of what does Stephen Miller do with that role of being chief of staff, knowing that the American people have said that ICE overreached? Ambassador, can I ask a question about this, though, the overreach? You just said that everyone knew that they were overreaching. And I did not hear Republicans for the past two years say publicly, out loud, that they believed that ICE was overreaching. And they lost. I mean, that's, you know, I mean, that's the thing. I understand that. But the question is, if everybody saw it and and leaders like yourself and others saw it, why why why it used to be that there were people even inside certain parties who were religious about trying to, you know, stay close to their party would call things out. Well, I'll remind you, I was not in office and did not hold a position. So I would have been a private citizen. What I will tell you is I hope that Republicans find their voice. I hope that they when you see something wrong, you say it. You don't have to publicly say it. You can go behind closed doors. But if you don't see action that goes along with it, something needs to change. Like I said, the American people made a power move of saying we don't feel heard. We don't Don't feel listened to. This is a great opportunity for Republicans to say. You know what? It's not about just what's happening in Washington. It's not about just the party that's up there in Congress. This is about whether the American people feel them for being there on the ground, actually fighting and working. And when you see the administration doing something wrong, say it. That's the part that I think Republicans could learn the most. I mean, the Republicans were left with 10, 15, 20 million illegals that crossed the border. During the Biden administration, when none of the Democrats were saying, why do we have an open border down south? So, I mean, it goes it goes both ways. Give me a break. It does. And if you notice, too, the biggest win for Republicans and what they should have done was talk about it through the midterms was the fact that that was off the table. You didn't hear anything about the illegal immigration that we heard in 2024 because the presidential candidate was bizarre. The presidential candidate that they ran was the czar of the border. And we had Mayorkas saying the border is secure. The border is completely secure with 10, 15, 20 million. And even Democrats acknowledge that what President Trump did and what the Republicans did in closing that border was good for the American people. And so I hope Democrats also learn that's not what we want to go back to. That's not what the American people want to go back to. So we need to keep the border secure and keep them as they are. Ambassador, I know it was just last week that was the election. But if you have to look two years down the road, who do you think the leader in the party is when you have a president who. Is going to be stepping down, not retire or not not running again because he's already had two terms. You know, I'll tell you, I think it's too soon, because if you look in 2022, everybody said that Ron DeSantis was going to be the kingmaker and you saw he didn't get out of Iowa. So I think that, you know, it's too soon. What I will tell you is I think a lot of what happens in 20 28 depends on what happens in these next two years in Congress, in state houses across the the country with governorships all everyone needs to show that That we are the party of fiscal responsibility, law and order, national security, economic freedom, freedom for the American people. That's what we need to get back to. When we focus on the issues that we have always been for, that's when we win. And we've got to prove it to the American people. It's going to take time and it's going to take trust. And it's not about soundbites and it's not about peacocking on TV. It's about what is done so that the American people feel it. If national security is such a big part of that, what do you think of what's happening with NVIDIA and Jensen Huang right now? I have so many questions. First of all, if you look at when this became an issue, it was late 2024. In the middle of 2025, if the intelligence brought up the fact that this was an issue, my first question is. AI has been the topic for the last two years. It's the biggest national security issue. Defeating China has been one of the biggest issues. Protecting Americans has been a big issue. So here you have this situation where you think. That this spying is happening with one of our top CEOs of a company that everybody is completely dependent on for American national security. Who was told and what happened? I give everybody the benefit of the doubt to say no one meant any harm. And I think we should all do that. The concern I have is this should have immediately. risen up to the point that you, one, what did Marco Rubio do about it? Two, what did President Trump do about it? And three, why did you not tell Jensen Huang at the time that you were watching her and that you thought she was a spy? Here you had MegaSpeed come in, one of their preferred companies that they're dealing with. They're selling their advanced. This is all possibly going to China. And then we're wondering how China moves so fast on the progress of their open AI. All of this is a national security threat. And something fell. The process is dropped. Something went terribly wrong. And now we are going to pay the price for this. And, you know, I just think that there are a lot of answers that we need. We have a lot of questions. But I will tell you, just to give you a tidbit, when I was in on the presidential campaign and I got into New Hampshire. The CIA came to me in New Hampshire and said, we know that the Iranian regime is trying to meddle in your campaign and cause harm. You were supposed to tell the individual. That is threatened. What is happening? Why did that not happen? Why did they not tell Jensen Wong? Why did they allow Jensen Wong to continue to deal with this woman? Why? And we all ask this question. Why did we allow those H200 chips to start going to China? And if you remember, we were actually talking about the possibility of the Blackwell chips going to China. Why was that reversed? Why was there a push to allow China to have more access? Jensen Huang may have meant no harm, but there was influence here and the influence caused harm on everybody economically and from a national security decision. These are serious questions that need serious answers. Processes failed. Things went wrong. And now we've got to figure out how to make it right. And Trump's meeting with President Xi next week. One, he should question whether he should even meet with him. And two, he should absolutely bring this up, even though she will deny it. All right. Madam Ambassador, we appreciate your time. Are we going to hear more from you? You're not done yet, are you? You know, I am not running in 2028, but I will continue to talk about the things that I care about. I will continue to push good policy. I will continue to support good candidates. And we want a strong America. And whatever we have to do, I think every one of us has an obligation to try and continue those moving the ball forward. Do you have a favorite? AOC. No, I'm kidding. Do you have a favorite Republican for 2028? It's not what anybody says. We need to watch what they do. That's what I'll be watching for. OK, there could be. Now I see the ranks of the Republican possibilities swelling, too, but we're already at like 20 on the Democratic side. I don't know if you've seen the. No, look, they have a very talented slate on the Democrat side. We have the possibility of a talented slate on the Republican side. The question is which party learns the lessons going into 2028 because American people are very smart and they're going to decide based on who they trust. You know, if it were... So it's going to be tough for Republicans in the Senate. Obviously, if you look at who's up in two years, it's always tough in the House when it when it's this lopsided, which could mean not divided government in 2028. Do you think the country would change a lot if there was a Democratic president? Look, I hope there's, I hope there's a Republican president. We have seen Democrat presidents. We've seen overspending. We've seen increased debt. We don't see the priority of national security. We see our freedoms pulled in. We see overregulation on businesses. So I don't want to see a Democrat president. What I do want to see is Republicans go back to remembering who we are and what we believe in. Because if we have a Democrat president, I'll remind you, when President Obama came in and there was a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate, that's when we got Obamacare. That's when we got all these things that happened. And it was a difficult two years for the American people. We could have new states. We could have, you know, a much larger Supreme Court. Court changing. Supreme Court. You could have Puerto Rico and D.C. become states. You could see overregulation. A lot could happen. That's not looking that far-fetched at this point. No, it's not. And that's why Republicans need to act now. And they have the opportunity to do it. I believe that they can make a difference. But this is not about I'll say it again. This is not about peacocking on TV. It's what are you going to do to get to solutions? Yes, we are in a difficult situation because Democrats are in control. But there are still things that we can work together on with spending. There are still things that we can do to make sure that China doesn't win. There are still things we can do to bring a bring an end to this war. There are things that we can do that can be productive so the American people feel it. And the main thing is the spending. If you look at the debt and you look at the spending, Gen Z. They are incredibly frustrated. Look at the numbers and how they voted. They're incredibly frustrated because many are still having to live with their parents. If they get out and work, they can't afford rent. They see this debt that's ultimately going to come back to them, and they don't see anybody fighting for them. And so really getting a leader that's younger, that's going to listen to Gen Z, that's going to realize Social Security goes bankrupt in just five years, And 75 million Americans will be... Dealing with that. Let's start talking about the issues and stop hating on each other. I'm all for Republicans being strong Republicans. But what Americans don't want is the hate and the back and forth. They want results. We've got to give it to them. We owe it to them. Becky's ready to thank you now. I think you're ready. I'm back. Ambassador Haley, thank you. We do appreciate your time today. It's always great to be with all of you. Thank you so much. Thanks, Ambassador.