Republican presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley refused again on Sunday to say she would support former President Donald Trump in the November election should he win his party nomination, despite signing on to a pledge during a GOP debate to back the eventual party nominee against the Democrat in the general election.
While addressing Trump and the GOP primary on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Haley said, “I’m running against him because I don’t think he should be president. I don’t think he’s the right person at the right time.”
“The last thing on my mind is who I’m going to support. The only thing on my mind is how we’re going to win this,” said the former governor, whom Trump once appointed to be U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and is now competing with him for the nation’s top office.
Haley also insisted that polling data predict Trump “will not win” in a general election and that she is “gonna win” the primary.
DEVELOPING: In Nikki Haley's home state of South Carolina, young people are out in great numbers chanting, "WE LOVE TRUMP." WATCHpic.twitter.com/sA3qjsj4o2
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) February 10, 2024
Last July, in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” Haley said she would support Trump against the Democrats. “I would support him because I am not going to have a President Kamala Harris,” the former governor said. “We can’t afford that. That is not going to happen.”
After weeks of increasingly fierce attacks on Trump, Haley now says Harris is the reason why she does not support Trump.
“We are going to have a female president of the United States,” Haley contended. “It will either be me or it will be Kamala Harris. And if Donald Trump is the nominee of the – in – for the Republican Party, he will not win. Every poll shows that. He will not win. And we will have a President Kamala Harris.”
ABC host Jonathan Karl repeatedly pressed Haley on supporting Trump for the general election throughout the interview, but she refused to respond, instead stating: “Ask him if he’s going to support me when I’m the nominee.”
She did not agree to backing the likely winner of the Republican Party presidential nominating contest. She said she “highly” doubts that Trump would take the same pledge for her.
