Haley says she is ‘very happy’ with Supreme Court keeping Trump on ballot
GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she is “very happy” the Supreme Court restored former President Trump to the ballot in Colorado on Monday, rejecting 14th Amendment challenges to his eligibility for the White House.
Haley responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling on CNN’s “The Lead” with Jake Tapper, explaining that voters should be the ones to decide whether they want Trump to lead the country.
“We don’t want the chaos of certain states or secretaries of state saying that they like someone or don’t like someone and want to take them off the ballot. I trust the American people,” Haley told Tapper.
“I think at the end of the day, they will decide who they want to lead this country. And I think we should let it happen that way. So I was very happy with the Supreme Court ruling,” she added.
The court ruled that Colorado cannot disqualify the former president from the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause, with the majority writing that the authority to enforce the amendment to disqualify federal candidates rests with Congress.
Haley remains the only major challenger to Trump in the GOP presidential primary but is trailing significantly behind the former president. According to Decision Desk HQ, 192 delegates are pledged to Trump while 42 are pledged to Haley.
A candidate needs 1,215 delegates to win the Republican nomination.
Haley has vowed to remain in the primary race “as long as we are competitive” ahead of Super Tuesday. She said Monday that she wants to defeat Trump without the courts booting him off the ballot.
“I’m trying to defeat Donald Trump fair and square. I don’t need them taking him off the ballot to do it. I think we’re trying to share enough that this is chaos that we want to get back to an America that’s normal and that we need a new generational leader. And that’s the way we’re going to continue pushing forward,” she said.
When asked if the 14th Amendment is supposed to be “taken seriously” in light of the ruling, she said that it is up to legal experts to decide.
“I think that, you know, the Supreme Court wasn’t there to decide whether it was an insurrection or not,” she said. “They were there to decide whether someone could be taken off the ballot like that. And I think that they made the right decision when they said, let the people decide and let it go from there.”