Liz Cheney calls out Nikki Haley over supporting Trump
Liz Cheney calls out Nikki Haley over supporting Trump
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00:00I've never voted for a Democrat.
00:02Wow.
00:03And it tells you, I think, the stakes in this election.
00:09You know, Donald Trump presents a challenge and a threat
00:13fundamentally to the republic.
00:17Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney
00:19warning and urging her fellow conservatives
00:21not to support Donald Trump this fall.
00:23Cheney taking issue, of course, with one Republican
00:26in particular, former presidential candidate Nikki
00:28Haley, who endorsed Trump after dropping out of the GOP
00:31primary earlier this year.
00:34I can't understand her position on this
00:38in any kind of a principled way.
00:41I think that the things that she said,
00:44that she made clear when she was running in the primary,
00:48those things are true.
00:49And again, those of us who are conservative,
00:54those of us who believe in fidelity to the Constitution
00:59have a responsibility and have a duty to recognize this
01:02is not about partisan politics.
01:04And the country is going to need to rebuild
01:07conservative, true conservative movement when we're
01:11through this election cycle.
01:13Haley defending her support of the former president
01:16this weekend.
01:18I've always said, look, if I thought Biden or Trump
01:21were great candidates, I wouldn't
01:22have run for president.
01:23I ran because I thought I could do a better job.
01:26You don't think he's a good candidate?
01:27I think he is the Republican nominee.
01:30The reality is she has a record.
01:32The administration has a record.
01:34Trump has a record.
01:36And so neither are perfect.
01:38Neither are ideal.
01:40So let's talk about the policies then.
01:44So Dana, we touched briefly on Dick Cheney.
01:48And I want to dig into that as well, because in some ways,
01:51him saying he's going to go for Kamala Harris,
01:54certainly we knew Liz Cheney was not
01:55going to vote for Donald Trump.
01:57But this back and forth between Haley and Cheney,
02:00I mean, Cheney obviously made a decision
02:01to make this something that was so central to her
02:04that she couldn't possibly remain part of the party.
02:08And she's looking at what Nikki Haley did.
02:10And Haley clearly has made a different calculation
02:12for her own political future.
02:15How do you see this?
02:16Exactly what you just said.
02:18Liz Cheney, there's, I mean, you can
02:20tell me if I'm wrong, there's no future for Liz Cheney
02:24in this Republican Party anymore, which again,
02:26is just stunning to me that I could
02:28say that about a Cheney covering politics in this town
02:31for as long as I have.
02:33Nikki Haley is a young woman.
02:35She is somebody who does hope that there is a future for her.
02:40She did better than any other opponent
02:42of Donald Trump in the Republican primary this year.
02:46And she wants to keep her sort of toe in Trump world
02:52to the point that, well, toe in Trump world
02:54is probably the wrong way to say it.
02:55She wants to keep her options open.
02:57And if she doesn't endorse Donald Trump,
03:01then the people who are completely blindly loyal to him,
03:05when he's gone and he's exited the stage,
03:08they might think twice about supporting her
03:10if she wants their vote again.
03:11That's not where Liz Cheney is right now.
03:15Matt Gorman, how do you look at this?
03:16I mean, a couple of things.
03:17I kind of separate them.
03:18I don't think people are waiting the world over
03:21to see what finally Liz Cheney is going to say about this
03:24and have their vote kind of correspond to that, number one.
03:28I think with Nikki Haley, it's always been a dance with her.
03:31It's always been very, she's sometimes even played
03:34a little bit too cute.
03:35And I keep flashing back to this moment
03:37during the Republican convention where
03:39she said, President Trump asked me to speak tonight.
03:41And then he leans over.
03:43And who knows what the real truth is,
03:44but he's like, she asked to speak.
03:46And so there's always been this little weird back and forth
03:49where she's tried to have it a little too cute with Trump.
03:51And it's almost to the point where if you love Trump,
03:55Nikki Haley will never be an option for you.
03:57But there might be a small slice that would still vote
04:00for her in the presidential primary.
04:02It's interesting.
04:02If there could be anyone maybe swayed by Liz Cheney,
04:05maybe it would be a few Nikki Haley voters.
04:07And the fact is that Nikki Haley has not
04:08been on the campaign trail.
04:10And she said in that interview, well, he hasn't asked me.
04:12And so she's waiting for him to call to ask.
04:15And it's like this game of, well,
04:17are you going to call me first?
04:18Are you going to call me first?
04:19And as a result, she's kept her completely off the trail.
04:22She wasn't really in the mix for VP,
04:25not because a lot of Republicans didn't see advantage there,
04:27but because Trump personally wanted
04:30her to submit and do what this loyalty says.
04:33But don't you think that's also saying Donald Trump is saying
04:36to her voters, you're not that important to me.
04:38I don't need to call you.
04:39So these independent people that he actually needs to win,
04:41he is saying, you're not that important to me.
04:43I don't actually need to call you.
04:44There are no Nikki Haley voters.
04:45That's the other thing.
04:46They're not her voters.
04:47She was a vessel through which voters
04:49who were unhappy with the time of voting for Trump
04:52in a presidential primary.
04:53But the idea that they are like Buchanan voters will only come.
04:56This isn't a critique of you.
04:58But I always kind of laugh at that notion.
05:01She was a vessel.
05:01She encapsulated them well.
05:04But she rented them.
05:05She doesn't own them.
05:06But do you think it would be helpful to have her
05:08on the trail?
05:09What I want to know is, who are the Nikki Haley voters that
05:12could be swayed?
05:13I mean, send her to Chester County, Pennsylvania.
05:15Again, but who are the people that
05:18will be swayed by Nikki Haley specifically going there?
05:22I think that is the thing.
05:23She didn't own those voters.
05:24She rented them.
05:25But there are the independent women
05:26who didn't want to vote for Joe Biden
05:28and don't want to vote for Donald Trump.
05:30And so Nikki Haley gives them permission,
05:33just like in the way that Cheney's are giving Republicans
05:35permission to vote for Kamala Harris.
05:37She would give people, be like, OK,
05:39we can vote for Donald Trump.
05:40Like, this person who we support also supports him.
05:42I think the reason that also Nikki Haley isn't itching
05:45to go out there is because she knows that those people are now
05:48going to tart.
05:49They don't want to vote for Trump anyway.
05:50And so by her going out there and advocating
05:52to vote for Trump, she's hurting her own name
05:55for no actual political end.
05:56Well, then she's miscalculating because he's
05:58going to hurt her in the process of not even having her out
06:00there.
06:01So what was the point of endorsing then?
06:02Well, you can keep going.
06:03Go for it.
06:04Go for it.
06:04It wasn't for him.
06:06That was for her.
06:07Don't you think she would be a better messenger on abortion
06:11rights, though, I feel like, than Trump and Vance
06:13have been so far?
06:13I think, well, I will say this.
06:14We go back to the debate.
06:15She gave Trump the template for his answer.
06:18Go back and his answer on abortion during the debate
06:20you had, I thought was very similar to Nikki Haley
06:23in a good way from the presidential primaries.
06:26Yeah, really interesting conversation.
06:28Guys, thank you so much for being here.