Nikki Haley in Bluffton Monday: National security, her underdog status and defeating Biden
Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley held a town hall rally in Bluffton Monday in front of a capacity crowd of more than one thousand supporters. She focused her remarks on inflation, education, national security and made her case why she’s a tougher opponent for President Biden than former President Trump.
Haley spoke at the recreation center at University of South Carolina Beaufort’s Bluffton campus where she shared that, even though she’s poling behind the former president, she wasn’t phased by the role of underdog. She recounted her time in politics, which started with a house run in 2004 against SC’s longest sitting legislator. “I have been underestimated in everything I’ve ever done and it’s a blessing, because it makes me scrappy,” she said.
She predicted that by the time the primary reaches South Carolina Haley and Trump would be the only two still in the race for the GOP nomination.
Inflation: Not all the Democrats fault
For inflation, Haley wasn’t ready to put the blame squarely on Biden and democrats.
“There’s nothing I would love more than to say Biden did that to us,” Haley said. “But, I’ve always spoken in utter truths and I’m going to do that with you today. Our republicans did that to us too.” Haley cited the 2024 appropriations ledger to see that Republicans put aside $7.4 billion to the Democrat’s $2.8 billion in earmarks and pet projects.
As a solution to inflation, Haley said she would send multiple federal programs down to the states. It would not only save money, but would give the states more autonomy.
David Brown of Hilton Head attended the town hall and praised Haley for her candor.“I’ve been a lifelong Republican, but she’s not afraid to say, ‘hey, it’s not on the Democrats, it’s also on the Republicans.”
“The world is literally on fire”
Most of her 45 minutes on stage were spent on national security issues and she drew on her two years of experience as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration.
“The world is literally on fire,” she said. “You’ve got a war in Europe. You’ve got a war in the Middle East. North Korea testing ballistic missiles. You’ve got China on the march.”
Haley emphasizing the importance of protecting our allies said she would only give Ukraine equipment and munitions, but would give Israel “whatever they need whenever they need it, no questions asked.”
Haley called China the “number one national security threat” to the United States suggesting it’s time America changes its tone with China. “Every day in the U.N. they never saw us as a competitor, they saw us as an enemy,” she said. “We need to start looking at them the way they look at us.”
The Trump factor
Nearly making it through the entire speech without a mention, Haley saved the talk for the current GOP front-runner, former President Donald Trump for last.
“I believe president Trump was the right president at the right time. I was proud to serve America in his administration,” she started. “The truth is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. We have too much division and too many threats around the world to be sitting in chaos once again.”
The former governor now has a hold on second place in SC and New Hampshire, and recently was tied for second in Iowa in a recent Des Moines Register poll. Haley started gaining momentum, at least in part, because of her performance in the three republican debates.
In SC Haley leads Florida Governor DeSantis by six points, according to the latest Winthrop University poll of Republican voters in South Carolina.
But in this case, second place is far from where Haley would like to be. She’s got a lot of ground to cover, with the former president still polling around 35 points ahead of her candidacy. But Haley doesn’t mind currently being in second place.
“If you look at recent polls Donald Trump beats Biden by three to four points. I beat Biden by 10 to 13,” she added.
