On Sunday, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and said that she was “no longer bound” by the pledge the GOP primary candidates made to the RNC to endorse and support the eventual nominee. Her reasons for breaking that commitment were… interesting.
Asked by NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, “So you’re no longer bound by that pledge?” Haley responded that she was not obligated to endorse former President Donald Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee.
“No, I think I’ll make what decision I want to make, but that’s not something I’m thinking about,” she said, noting that “if you talk about an endorsement, you’re talking about a loss. I don’t think like that.”
She added, “When you’re in a race, you don’t think about losing. You think about continuing to go forward.”
This comes, of course, days after former President Donald Trump swept another round of primaries and caucuses and not long after he trounced Haley in her home state of South Carolina.
See Related: Trump Takes Missouri Caucuses, Michigan GOP Convention Awards Him With More Delegates Saturday
CNN Epic Meltdown Over Trump’s SC Win and What People Think About 2020 Is a Sight to Behold
The Governor’s next point in the “Meet the Press” interview, however, sounds a bit like she is dealing with some cognitive dissonance.
Pressed further about whether voters who will head to the polls in the GOP presidential primary on Tuesday deserve to know where she stands on endorsing Trump, Haley continued to dodge the question, saying, “When you all ask Donald Trump if he would support me, then I will talk about that. But right now, my focus is, ‘How do we touch as many voters? How do we win?’”
The statement is an apparent shift from her previous attitude toward a potential endorsement. Asked in July whether she would support Trump if he wins, Haley told Fox News, “I would support him because I’m not going to have a President Kamala Harris,” referring to the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris would become president if anything were to happen to President Joe Biden in a second term.
It makes little sense to ask if former President Trump would support Governor Haley; she’s not going to be the nominee. At this point in the cycle, it seems like it’s a poor use of Nikki Haley’s time and campaign cash to keep pondering the question, “How do we win?” Unless there is a political turnabout of historical proportions, the nomination now belongs to Donald Trump; this week’s Super Tuesday primaries are almost certainly going to cement that. This is the reality that everyone in the Republican party has to deal with: Never-Trumper, Always-Trumper, and every shade of Trumper in between may as well get used to the idea that the nomination is, barring some unforeseeable catastrophe, Trump’s.
Governor Haley deserves props for tenacity; she doesn’t give up easily, and that’s not the worst trait in any field of endeavor. But at this point in the campaign, one is reminded of a famous quote by the great American entertainer William Claude Dukenfield, better known as W.C. Fields:
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”
Governor Haley is at that point. There is some sense in hanging around until the Super Tuesday results are in. But if the Super Tuesday results are as lopsidedly for Donald Trump as the primaries and caucuses have been to date, then Nikki Haley is fast approaching “damn fool” territory by staying in the game.
