Former South Carolina Governor and former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley has refused to offer apologies for the “tough things” she said about Donald Trump during the Republican party’s primary fight, despite choosing to support the former president over presumptive Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the November election.
In her first interview since endorsing Trump and speaking at the Republican National Convention, Haley said President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race Sunday did not come as a surprise while saying Harris was worse than Biden.
“I wasn’t surprised, and I didn’t take happiness in it,” Haley said of Biden’s announcement.
“I think through the whole campaign, I fought for mental competency tests. I wasn’t doing it to be disrespectful. I wasn’t doing it to be mean. I was doing it because I think it’s not just Joe Biden. There is an issue we have in DC, where people will go into office and they won’t let go. And then their staffers and their family keep propping them up, and it’s a problem for the American people.”
Haley added: “I never thought he would make it to the election. I always said a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris, and I think that’s what’s playing out.”
But Haley who said during her presidential campaign that the first party “to retire its 80-year-old candidate” would win the election argued that Democrats’ decision to elevate Harris gave them “the weakest candidate they could put in.”
“She is much more progressive than Joe Biden ever was,” Haley said. “So, the fact they put in Kamala Harris – kudos for putting in someone younger – the fact that you put in one of the most liberal politicians you probably could have put in, it’s going to be an issue.”
During the tumultuous Republican party primary, Haley repeatedly attacked Trump as “toxic,” “unhinged” and lacking “moral clarity.”
In the CNN interview, Haley brushed aside the rhetoric as just part of a campaign which included Trump’s attacks on Haley and her husband while he was deployed overseas.
“I said a lot of tough things about him in the campaign. He said a lot of tough things about me in the campaign. That’s what happens in campaigns. I don’t think we need to apologize or take anything back. I don’t plan on doing that,” Haley said.
Asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper about her previous comments that she didn’t know whether Trump would follow the Constitution if reelected, Haley said: “I hope he does. I hope that any president would follow the Constitution.”
“So, yes, I hope that everything he does is in line with the Constitution, and I hope that Congress enforces that, and I hope that everybody he surrounds himself with enforces that. But I think the American people need to demand it,” she added.
