Nikki Haley says the Supreme Court made the right call overturning the Colorado ruling that disqualified Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot.
The former United Nations ambassador says she ‘wants’ Trump on the ballot even though she is significantly behind him in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
In a unanimous 9-0 ruling on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court said that Trump must remain on the Colorado ballot and decided it’s unconstitutional for a state to decide who voters can and cannot vote for in a presidential election.
Speaking in Houston, Texas on Monday, Haley said it was the right call despite the major victory for her primary competitor.
Trump has a major delegate lead over Haley and is essentially the presumed Republican nominee. Still, Haley insists she will ‘defeat Donald Trump fair and square.’
Former U.N. Amb. Nikki Haley said Monday in Houston, Texas that the U.S. Supreme Court made the right decision to overruled Colorado’s ruling to kick Donald Trump off the state’s ballot. She said: ‘Look, I will defeat Donald Trump fair and square. But I want him on that ballot’
Anti-Trump demonstrators protest outside the US Supreme Court in February. The court decided Monday that Trump is eligible to run for president in the 2024 election
Haley tore into Trump for not talking about his policies enough but making the race a referendum on his presidency as he focuses must of his rallies on the lawsuits and political targets against him.
‘All he did was talk about himself. And that’s the problem. This isn’t about him, this is about the American people,’ Haley lamented when speaking to supporters the day before Super Tuesday. ‘And you will see – I will always fight for every freedom for you to have.’
‘The Supreme Court ruled today that Donald Trump could stay on the ballot,’ she said, to which crowd members booed and jeered.
But she cut in with: ‘No, I think that was important. We don’t ever want some elected official in a state or anybody else saying who can and can’t be on a ballot. This is America.’
‘Look, I will defeat Donald Trump fair and square. But I want him on that ballot,’ she insisted.
The promise, however, is a far cry from reality.
After a half dozen primary contests over the last two months, Trump holds 244 delegates to the 43 Haley has amassed.
A candidate must earn 1,215 delegates to win the party’s nomination for president.
There are 874 delegates up for grabs in the consequential Super Tuesday race – where 15 states and American Samoa will cast their ballots on Tuesday, March 5 during concurrent primary contests.
‘I’m not doing this for me – clearly I think I’ve made my point I’m not doing this to become vice president,’ Haley said during her remarks in Texas – one of the 15 Super Tuesday states.
‘I’m not doing this for a political career. If that was the case, I’d have been here a long time ago,’ she added.
The main point in running, Haley said, is that ‘our kids deserve to know what normal feels like.’
Donald Trump made remarks from Mar-a-Lago after the ruling on Monday
The Supreme Court decision in Trump’s favor on Monday was a fatal blow for a group of states trying to kick the former president off the ballot.
In an immediate reaction Trump declared on his Truth Social network: ‘BIG WIN FOR AMERICA!!!’
The ruling effectively ends efforts in other states, including Illinois and Maine, to disqualify Trump from running in the 2024 general election over claims his conduct on January 6, 2021 amounted to ‘insurrection’.
Colorado and the other states argue that under Clause 3 of the 14th Amendment, Trump engaged in ‘insurrection’ and can therefore not run for president.
While the High Court did not rule on whether Trump engaged in an insurrection, it did say only Congress can decide if Trump is, or is not, eligible to run – and the decision is not up to individual states.