Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley had a number of stand-out moments during her appearance at an Iowa town hall hosted by CNN on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Haley addressed how she plans to overtake former President Trump, the clear front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination, as well as addressing recent controversial statements she made on the campaign trail regarding slavery and the Iowa caucuses.<\/p>\n
When asked how she planned to overtake Trump, who continues to hold a commanding lead in the polls despite Haley\u2019s recent surge in New Hampshire and Iowa, the former South Carolina governor pointed to how many of the same polls indicate she would triumph in a one-on-one matchup with President Biden.<\/p>\n
\u2018I defeat Biden by 17 points,\u2019 Haley said, referencing one recent poll and noting it showed she would perform better than Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Republican candidate, in a hypothetical November contest against Biden. \u2018If you win by double digits, you go into Washington with a mandate\u2026 It is time to move past President Trump.\u2019<\/p>\n
Haley argued that \u2018chaos follows\u2019 Trump and that she would be the generational leader \u2018that leaves negativity and baggage behind.\u2019 However, she later defended her intention to pardon Trump should he be convicted of any crime, and said some of the prosecutions the former president is currently facing in Georgia, Washington, D.C. and New York were \u2018politically motivated.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018I used to tell him he\u2019s his own worst enemy,\u2019 Haley said, after stating that Trump would \u2018have to answer\u2019 for some of the charges he faces, but without specifying which ones.<\/p>\n
When asked about the worsening crisis at the southern border, Haley called Biden\u2019s handling of the situation was \u2018truly a dereliction of duty,\u2019 and slammed his administration\u2019s efforts to combat Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott\u2019s actions to secure his state from the masses of migrants attempting to cross the Rio Grande.<\/p>\n
\u2018Are you kidding me?\u2019 she said in reaction to Biden\u2019s efforts to remove razor wire placed at the border to prevent passage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Haley added that a Haley administration would implement a national e-verify program to ensure businesses weren\u2019t hiring illegal immigrants, defund sanctuary cities, \u2018once and for all,\u2019 reinstate the remain in Mexico policy implemented by Trump, and \u2018catch and deport\u2019 rather than \u2018catch and release.\u2019<\/p>\n
She went on to praise Abbott\u2019s bussing migrants to sanctuary cities, but avoided giving DeSantis credit for doing the same despite being directly asked.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Haley was later asked about how she declined to mention slavery as the reason for sparking the Civil War during a town hall event last month. She reiterated that she made a mistake by not mentioning it.<\/p>\n
She explained that, as a southerner, she looks past the issue of slavery and race because of its prevalence in southern history and how southerners are exposed to it from an early age, but that she still should have mentioned slavery first.<\/p>\n
Continuing on the discussion of race, she touted her handling of the shooting of an unarmed Black man by a police officer in South Carolina in 2015 while she was governor, and noted that riots like those in Ferguson, Missouri that same year didn\u2019t take place because of the relationship building she did with police and the community.<\/p>\n
Haley also defended her recent comments on the Iowa caucuses that although the state \u2018starts\u2019 the nominating process, New Hampshire will \u2018correct it.\u2019 The suggestion lead to sharp criticism from her Republican opponents.<\/p>\n
\u2018We banter against each other\u2026 It\u2019s what we do,\u2019 Haley said. \u2018I think the problem in politics now is it\u2019s too serious and too dramatic.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018I have been coming here for months\u2026 You are going to see me fight until the very end of the last day in Iowa,\u2019 she said. \u2018If I didn\u2019t love Iowa, I wouldn\u2019t keep coming to Iowa.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Said added that she would probably joke about New Hampshire while in Iowa in the coming days.<\/p>\n\n
Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley had a number of stand-out moments during her appearance at an Iowa town hall hosted by CNN on Thursday. Haley addressed how she plans to overtake former President Trump, the clear front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination, as well as addressing recent controversial statements <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13634","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13634","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13634"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13634\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13635"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13634"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13634"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13634"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}