Trump ally Scott calls on 'desperate' Haley to drop out ahead of South Carolina: Live – The Independent

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Former UN ambassador points to stongest fundraising of career to keep campaign going
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Related: Nikki Haley says she would pardon Donald Trump if elected president
Ahead of a major address on Tuesday, Nikki Haley told The Associated Press that she will not leave the Republican primary election regardless of the result in South Carolina this Saturday, vowing to stay in the 2024 race at least until after Super Tuesday on 5 March.
The former governor and UN ambassador has yet to win any state against frontrunner Donald Trump.
Ms Haley made headlines over the weekend by declining to say she would endorse Mr Trump but promising to pardon him if she entered the White House.
The former president reacted furiously to those comments, appearing to object to Ms Haley effectively “legitimising” the criminal cases against him, contrary to his baseless insistence that they are all part of a conspiracy being orchestrated by President Joe Biden and his myriad enemies.
Meanwhile, South Carolina Tim Scott, an energetic Trump cheerleader, called on Ms Haley to suspend her campaign, saying he senses “desperation” around her.
In the same interview, Mr Scott made the preposterous claim that Democrats want an open, insecure border, whereas Republicans “know that means you have to control your back door”, despite the fact that it is GOP members holding up relevant spending bills in Congress.
Trump not happy
Trump, in recent days, has shown flashes of fury in response to Haley’s refusal to cede the nomination.
He called her “stupid” and “birdbrain” in a social media post over the weekend and his campaign released a memo ahead of her speech on Tuesday predicting that she would be forced out of the race after losing her home state on Saturday.
“The true ‘State’ of Nikki Haley’s campaign?” Trump’s campaign chiefs wrote. “Broken down, out of ideas, out of gas, and completely outperformed by every measure, by Donald Trump.”
Eager to pivot toward a general election matchup against Biden, the Republican former president is taking aggressive steps to assume control of the Republican National Committee, the GOP’s nationwide political machine, which is supposed to stay neutral in presidential primary elections. Last week, Trump announced plans to install his campaign’s senior adviser Chris LaCivita, as RNC’s chief operating officer and daughter-in-law Lara Trump as the committee’s co-chair.
And there is every expectation that current Chair Ronna McDaniel will step down after Trump wins South Carolina’s primary and party officials will ultimately acquiesce to Trump’s wishes. Privately, Haley’s team concedes there is nothing it can do to stop the Trump takeover.
In the interview, Haley warned her party against letting Trump raid the RNC’s coffers to pay for his legal fees while taking a short-term view of Trump’s political prospects.
Trump’s standing will fundamentally change if he is a convicted felon before Election Day, Haley said, acknowledging that such an outcome is a very real possibility as Trump navigates 91 felony charges across four separate criminal cases.
“People are not looking six months down the road when these court cases have taken place,” Haley said. “He’s going to be in a courtroom all of March, April, May and June. How in the world do you win a general election when these cases keep going and the judgments keep coming?”
As for her path forward, Haley said she’s focused only on her plans through Super Tuesday. As for staying in the race through the July convention, she said she hasn’t thought that far ahead.
Some voters wish she would.
Gil White, a 75-year-old Republican veteran from James Island, South Carolina, said he was a Trump loyalist until the former president criticized Haley’s husband, a military serviceman, last week.
“For him to disparage a military man in deployment is just too much,” White said while attending a Haley rally in Kiawah Island over the weekend.
He acknowledged concerns about Haley’s chances against Trump, but said he wants her to stay in the race even if she continues to lose.
“I want the choice,” he said.
Haley’s campaign raised $5 million in a fundraising swing after her second-place finish in New Hampshire that included stops in Texas, Florida, New York, and California, Perez-Cubas said. Her campaign raised $16.5 million in January alone — her best fundraising month ever — which includes $2 million in small-dollar donations online in the 48 hours after Trump threatened to “permanently bar” Haley supporters from his MAGA movement.
Haley raised another $1 million last week in the 24 hours after Trump attacked her husband, a military serviceman currently serving overseas.
The lone member of Congress who has endorsed Haley, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., insisted that she would stay in the race even if she is blown out in South Carolina, a state where she lives and served two terms as governor.
“Obviously, you want to win them all, but for those who say it’s going to embarrass her, or end her political career, I disagree. She’s willing to take that risk,” Norman said in an interview. “I think it’s a courageous thing she’s doing.”
Moving forward, Haley’s team is especially focused on several Super Tuesday states with open or semi-open Republican primaries that allows a broader collection of voters to participate — especially independents and moderates — instead of just hardcore conservatives.
Continued…
Haley’s Hurdles
History would suggest Haley has no chance of stopping Trump. Never before has a Republican lost even the first two primary contests, as Haley has by an average of 21 points, and gone on the win the party’s presidential nomination. Polls suggest she is a major underdog in her home state on Saturday and in the 16 Super Tuesday contests to follow. And since he announced his first presidential bid in 2015, every effort by a Republican to blunt Trump’s rise has failed.
Yet she is leaning into the fight.
Lest anyone question her commitment, Haley’s campaign is spending more than $500,000 on a new television advertising campaign set to begin running Wednesday in Michigan ahead of the state’s Feb. 27 primary, according to spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas. At the same time, the AP has obtained Haley’s post-South Carolina travel schedule that features 11 separate stops in seven days across Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Washington, D.C., North Carolina and Massachusetts.
The schedule also includes at least 10 high-dollar private fundraising events.
Indeed, Haley’s expansive base of big- and small-dollar donors is donating at an extraordinary pace despite her underwhelming performance at the polls. That’s a reflection of persistent Republican fears about Trump’s ability to win over independents and moderate voters in the general election and serious concerns about his turbulent leadership should he return to the White House.
“I’m going to support her up to the convention,” said Republican donor Eric Levine, who co-hosted a New York fundraiser for Haley earlier this month. “We’re not prepared to fold our tents and pray at the alter of Donald Trump.”
“There’s value in her sticking in and gathering delegates, because if and when he stumbles,” Levine continued, “who knows what happens.”
Levine is far from alone.
Continued…
There are no wins on the horizon for Nikki Haley.
Those close to the former United Nations ambassador, the last major Republican candidate standing in Donald Trump’s path to the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, are privately bracing for a blowout loss in her home state’s primary election in South Carolina on Saturday. And they cannot name a state where she is likely to beat Trump in the coming weeks.
But ahead of a major address on Tuesday, Haley told The Associated Press that she will not leave the Republican primary election regardless of Saturday’s result. And backed by the strongest fundraising numbers of her political career, she vowed to stay in the fight against Trump at least until after Super Tuesday’s slate of more than a dozen contests on March 5.
“Ten days after South Carolina, another 20 states vote. I mean, this isn’t Russia. We don’t want someone to go in and just get 99% of the vote,” Haley said. “What is the rush? Why is everybody so panicked about me having to get out of this race?”
In fact, some Republicans are encouraging Haley to stay in the campaign even if she continues to lose — potentially all the way to the Republican National Convention in July. Her continued presence could come in handy in the event that the 77-year-old former president, perhaps the most volatile major party front-runner in U.S. history, becomes a convicted felon or stumbles into another major scandal.
As Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement presses for her exit, a defiant Haley will outline her rationale for sticking in the race for the foreseeable future Tuesday afternoon in South Carolina. In an interview ahead of the speech, she highlighted Trump’s legal exposure and criticized MAGA activists who say she’s hurting Trump’s chances against President Joe Biden in the general election by refusing to drop out.
“That’s about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. If I get out of the race today, it will be the longest general election in history,” Haley said.
She also pushed back when asked if there is any primary state where she can defeat Trump.
“Instead of asking me what states I’m gonna win, why don’t we ask how he’s gonna win a general election after spending a full year in a courtroom?”
The Biden campaign and the Democratic Party raised more $42m in January in a fundraising haul “driven by” grassroots efforts, officials said.
The Democrats now have $130m in cash on hand as the general election season is set to be one of the longest in recent memory.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement that “January’s fundraising haul – driven by a powerhouse grassroots fundraising program that continues to grow month by month – is an indisputable show of strength to start the election year”.
Gustaf Kilander reports from Washington, DC:
The Biden campaign and the Democratic Party raised more $42m in January in a fundraising haul “driven by” grassroots efforts, officials said.
Here’s more vitriol from the former House speaker against the Republican.
Shweta Sharma has this report on Pelosi invoking the kompromat alluded to in the Steele dossier way back in 2016.
Pelosi blasts Trump for his reaction on Navalny’s death and calls him Putin’s ‘buddy in violence’
While the Bidens will be pursuing deep-pocketed donors this week, the campaign points to the number of smaller donations it has raised as an encouraging sign for the president.
The campaign says 97% of the 3 million donations it has received thus far were under $200 each. Biden has also received pledges from 158,000 “sustaining donors” who have committed to donating on a monthly basis — more than double the amount Biden had at this point in the 2020 cycle.
Those totals include donations to Biden’s political operation and to a network of joint fundraising arrangements with the national and state Democratic parties. Biden’s 2020 campaign raised over $1bn, and could need even more in a likely Trump rematch.
“This haul will go directly to reaching the voters who will decide this election,” said Biden campaign senior communications adviser TJ Ducklo.
President Joe Biden heads to California on Tuesday looking to soak up more cash for his reelection bid during a three-day swing through the state.
Going into the trip, Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee announced Tuesday that they had collected $42m in contributions during January from 422,000 donors. Biden ended January with $130m in cash on hand. Campaign officials said that is the highest total amassed by any Democratic candidate at this point in the cycle.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez called the haul “an indisputable show of strength to start the election year.”
“While Team Biden-Harris continues to build on its fundraising machine, Republicans are divided – either spending money fighting Donald Trump, or spending money in support of Donald Trump’s extreme and losing agenda,” she said.
The campaign will need to keep fundraising for what is expected to be a hotly contested and expensive battle with former President Trump, who has emerged as the GOP’s likely nominee.
This week’s trip to Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area will mark Biden’s third visit to California in just over two months for political events. He’s trying to make up for lost time after largely avoiding the Democratic donor stronghold during last year’s strikes by the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.
Biden heads first to Los Angeles, where he will take part in a fundraiser. He’ll also make campaign stops in San Francisco and Los Altos Hills this week and deliver a policy speech near Los Angeles on Wednesday.
Biden made a quick visit to Los Angeles earlier this month for a meeting with supporters in the city’s upscale Bel Air neighborhood. He and first lady Jill Biden also spent a weekend in December in the Los Angeles area for campaign events.
The first lady is traveling Tuesday to Guilford, Connecticut, to hold a campaign fundraiser on behalf of her husband.
Continued…
The House of Representatives has set up a bipartisan task force on AI with a mandate to produce a comprehensive report with “guiding principles, forward-looking recommendations and bipartisan policy proposals.”
“Because advancements in artificial intelligence have the potential to rapidly transform our economy and our society, it is important for Congress to work in a bipartisan manner to understand and plan for both the promises and the complexities of this transformative technology,” said Speaker Mike Johnson. “I am happy to announce with Leader Jeffries this new Bipartisan Task Force on Artificial Intelligence to ensure America continues leading in this strategic arena.
“Led by Rep Jay Obernolte (R-Ca) and Rep Ted Lieu (D-Ca), the Task Force will bring together a bipartisan group of Members who have AI expertise and represent the relevant committees of jurisdiction. As we look to the future, Congress must continue to encourage innovation and maintain our country’s competitive edge, protect our national security, and carefully consider what guardrails may be needed to ensure the development of safe and trustworthy technology.”
“Congress has a responsibility to facilitate the promising breakthroughs that artificial intelligence can bring to fruition and ensure that everyday Americans benefit from these advancements in an equitable manner,” said Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
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Republican presidential candidate former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
AP
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