Meet the Press - March 3, 2024 Fmr. Amb. Nikki Haley (R) Presidential Candidate, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), Geoff Bennett, María Teresa Kumar, Marc Short and Ali Vitali
Interview
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I think we push hard. I think we fight. You're going to have 16 states and territories that are voting on Tuesday. And so, a lot of people's voices are going to be heard. And that's what this has all been about. You've only had three or four states that have voted up until now. We're a big country, and we want everybody to feel like they had the opportunity to vote for someone and not just against someone. And I think that's the biggest thing we hear, is people are so desperate for normal. And that's what we want to give them is normal.
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I've always said this needs to be competitive. As long as we are competitive, as long as we are showing that there is a place for us, I'm going to continue to fight. That's always been the case.
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Well, usually, you all are the ones that decide what's competitive and what's not. So, you know, you all decided whether I was competitive in Iowa, or New Hampshire, or South Carolina, so we're going to continue to just keep pushing through. I don't look too far ahead. I look at, "What do the American people want?" If 70% of Americans say they don't want Donald Trump or Joe Biden, that's not a small number. If 30 to 40% of all these early states have said they want to vote for the direction of where we want to take the country, that's not a small number. And so, that's why we continue to push forward.
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Well, first, let's see what happens on Super Tuesday. I don't like to look at what ifs or hypotheticals. I think we always have to live in the moment. They didn't think we'd make it to Iowa, and we came 1% from second. They said we were going to be 30 points down in New Hampshire. We got 43%. They didn't think that it would be between me and Trump in the end, and it is. So, I think we just keep going and looking and saying, "What else can we do? How many more people can we touch, and what message can we continue to give?"
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If the people want to see me go forward, they'll show it. They'll show it in their votes. They'll show it in their donations. They'll show it in the fact that they want us to continue to go forward. This is about really trying to get everyone to realize that this primary isn't between Donald Trump and Nikki Haley. Yes, on the ballot, that's what you see. This primary is, "What is the direction of the Republican Party?" Are we going to go where – you had Donald Trump, he grew government. He didn't reduce the size of government.
He put us $8 trillion in debt in just four years, more than any other president. And you're saying a Republican Party follow him into that wasteful spending, not talking about fiscal discipline. This is about Donald Trump, who believes that you should be more of an isolationist, that America doesn't need friends. That's his focus. My focus is we need to start respecting taxpayer dollars. We need to reduce the size of government. We need to put those resources more in the hands of the people. We need to start focusing on getting our kids reading again. We need to secure our borders and be a country of law and order. And we believe in peace through strength, which means our focus is to prevent war. That's two very different Republican Parties.
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It's not anything I think about. What I have said is –
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Well, I think, first of all, if you talk about an endorsement, you're talking about a loss. I don't think like that. When you're in a race, you don't think about losing. You think about continuing to go forward. What I can tell you is: I don't think Donald Trump or Joe Biden should be president. I don't think that we need two candidates in their 80s. I don't think we want a Joe Biden, who calls his opponents fascists or a Donald Trump, who calls his opponents vermin. No one wants that. I think people want a new generational leader that is going to go back to what the American dream is, what we want for our kids, and a place that's something that we can be proud of again.
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Yes
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I have always said that I have serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden.
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The RNC pledge – I mean, at the time of the debate, we had to take it to where, "Would you support the nominee," and in order to get on that debate stage, you said yes. The RNC is now not the same RNC. Now, it's –
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– Trump's daughter-in-law.
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No, I think I'll make what decision I want to make. But that's not something I'm thinking about. And I think that while you all think about that, I'm looking at the fact that we had thousands of people in Virginia. We're headed to North Carolina. We're going to continue to go to Vermont and Maine and all these states to go and show people that there is a path forward. And so, I don't look at what ifs. I look at, "How do we continue the conversation?"
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I truly am not thinking about any of that. And, you know, I mean, look, there's –
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There's a huge difference between me and Chris Christie. Chris Christie ran because he just didn't want Trump.I am running because it's not about Trump. I voted for him twice. I was proud to serve America in his administration. This is not a Never Trump movement. This is the fact that I see America going into a bad direction: One that's going off a fiscal cliff; one where our kids don't think they're ever going to be able to afford a home; one where we've got only 31% of eighth graders in our country reading; one where we have a ridiculously open border; and one where we're about to fall into war if we don't go forward.
I think that's dangerous. I think that's not what Americans want. And that's what I'm trying to say is, "We need to stop this direction and go in a new direction where we can be safe and healthy, economic freedom – freedom of all types – so that we can have Americans that feel like they have a government working for them again."
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Well, first of all, I think if you look at what happened on January 6th, I have said it was a terrible day. It is not a beautiful day. But, I’ve also, you know, I look at the fact that you had a lot of Americans going out there doing what we're blessed in this country to do: freedom of speech, freedom to say what they want to say. What went terribly wrong is the fact that we saw complete lawlessness going into the Capitol. And what Trump's role is, is not that he had the rally in the first place. That's what we do in America. The problem is when he had the opportunity to stop it. You know, you have everybody from Fox News anchors to friends to family begging him to say something to get them to stop, including his vice president. And he was silent.
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And he didn't say anything. So, it was like, "Why did you allow it to happen," because when a leader sees something that goes wrong, you use the power of your voice to make it right. That's what’s the question is: Where was he? Why didn't he do it? Those are the questions he's going to have to answer.
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We're going to find out.
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I think he should have said something earlier. I think he should have stopped it when it started.
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It's, it’s what I'm saying. I am telling you having the rally was not a crime. To turn around and not stop people from breaking the law when he had the opportunity to do that is questionable. And that's what I think the courts are going to have to play with and figure out how they're going to do it. I'm not a lawyer. I'm not going to try and play in that. I told you what I think in terms of the fact that anytime there is lawlessness, and you condone lawlessness, and you don't do anything to stop lawlessness, he's going to have to answer for that.
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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. You know, when you, when you go in and you talk about revenge, when you go and you talk about, you know, vindication, when you go and you talk about, what does that mean? Like, I don't know what that means. And only he can answer for that. What I can answer for is I don't think there should ever be a president that's above the law. I don't think that there should ever be a president that has total immunity to do whatever they want to do. I think that we need to have someone that our kids can look up to, that they can be proud of. And I think we need to have a country of law and order, a country of freedom, and a country that goes back to respecting the value of a taxpayer dollar. And we don't have any of that right now.
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Because I'm saying that's not the Republican Party. That is Donald Trump. If that is in question, that is for the voters to decide. What I am saying is: I think we deserve better. Americans deserve better. We can't say that our only options are Joe Biden and Donald Trump. We can't. Two guys in their 80s. Two guys that continue to put this division between America. Two guys who haven't talked about a vision for the future. All they do is talk about each other and the past. That's the problem.
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I am a Republican, and I know that there are thousands of people showing up at our events that are Republicans that do believe, unlike Donald Trump, in fiscal responsibility; that do believe in limit government, unlike Donald Trump; that do believe that we should stand with our allies in peace through strength; and that do believe that you can't go and call names, and say things, and blast against the bureaucracy, and do all these things to cause this anger and think that there's a better way forward. And I think that's what I'm trying to issue.
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What I support is that we make sure that every parent has the right to have those fertility processes. I had my two children through fertility. I want every parent who wants that blessing to be able to have that. And government shouldn't do anything to stop it.
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I think there should be protections for the embryos, so that parents feel like they're protected and respected. But I think the conversation of what happens with those embryos has to be between the parents and the physician, period. We don't need to go and create a bunch of laws for something when we don't have a problem. There is not a problem, in terms of what is happening, so we shouldn't have government create one. This is – this is not a hard thing. When parents decide they want to have a baby and they can't, the blessing that Michael and I had, to be able to go through the fertility processes to have our babies was a personal one that we wanted to have just with our doctor. We don't want to have that conversation with government.
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Well, what I have said is: This should be in the hands of the people for the people to decide. They should decide whether their states are going to be pro-life or pro-choice. They should decide whether their states are going to be IVF or not IVF. I personally think we want as many fertility options for people as they can. That's my opinion.
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But other states may decide something different. Alabama was going in one direction. I don't think that's a direction you want to go, the same way I don't think that the conversations that people have been having on abortion are good conversations. They divide people, instead of bringing people together. And I think these need to be handled with respect and humanizing these situations, instead of demonizing them.
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My personal opinions is that embryos are babies. Somebody else's may be different. I treated – the way Michael and I looked at it was we always looked at it that way. But everybody looks at this differently, and you are looking at a situation where, one, you're not talking about masses of embryos, but, two, you've got to talk with your doctor about what's viable and what's not. It's a very technical process that you can't just blanket a law around.
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Yes, of course.
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Yes, to make sure that IVF is there, to make sure that parents have it, all of that. But keep in mind, too, even when you're talking about the issue of abortion – and I don't think the fellows have talked about it well at all – we have to go back to, "What is it that we want?" We all want to say, "How do we save as many babies as possible and support as many moms as possible?" That's why I've said, with a federal law, rather than going and demonizing this issue, let's find consensus and say, "Why can't we come together on banning late-term abortions?
Why can't we come together on encouraging adoptions? Why can't we come together on saying doctors and nurses who don't believe in abortion shouldn't have to perform them? Why can't we come together and say contraception should be accessible? And why can't we come together and say no state can tell a woman who's had an abortion she's going to jail or getting the death penalty?" Why don't we just start there?
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Consensus is available when you tell the American people the truth. The American people have been told to have options that aren't realistic. You can't get consensus unless you have a majority of the House, 60 Senate votes, and a signature of a president. That's not going to happen without consensus.
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I think we need to give them the equipment and ammunition they need to win.
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I mean, you can do a loan if you want. But – if – that's like taking away the situation. What you should be looking at is: Putin has been very clear. Once he takes Ukraine, he's not going to stop. Poland and the Baltics are next. Look at what's happening with Moldova now. Those are NATO countries – not Moldova, but the others.
Those are NATO countries. That puts America at war. This is about preventing war. If we don't work with our allies to give them the equipment and ammunition to win, if Ukraine falls, Russia will go further. And that puts America at war. So, this isn't about a loan. Give them the equipment and ammunition they need to win, and let's put this to bed. Biden was too slow in the process. And now, Republicans are trying to play footsie with it. This is not something to play footsie with. This is about protecting Americans.
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Absolutely. I've said that over and over again. I've ruled out everything anybody could possibly say. I'm doing this because I think we have a country to save. I'm doing this for my kids, and I'm doing this for your kids and everybody else's, because they deserve to know what the American dream feels like, what hope feels like. If you look at the fact they went through COVID, and they've gone through all this division, and they don't think they're going to be able to afford a home or be able to make ends meet, we have to show them that there is a path. And right now, they don't feel that. And we owe that to them.
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Thanks so much.
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Of course.
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