Nikki Haley, who was the first prominent Republican to announce a challenge to former President Donald J. Trump in the 2024 race, has yet to see her presidential campaign ignite. On Sunday night, she got another chance to argue her candidacy during a 90-minute prime-time DailyExpertNews town hall, trying to break out of the low-single digits in polls in which she was bogged down.
Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and United Nations ambassador under Mr. Trump, was well versed on policy issues, always cheerful and even-tempered. While she drew contradictions with Mr. Trump, she evaded opportunities to make him — or even President Biden — a political punching bag.
At the end of the night, an audience member praised her attitude as “a breath of fresh air,” drawing applause from the house of Iowa Republicans. But that also meant there were few shoot-out-the-lights moments that could win Ms. Haley’s headlines and a fresh look from primary voters, now facing a growing field of Republicans in the race or soon to be will participate. .
Here are some takeaways from Sunday night’s event.
It was very different from Trump’s town hall.
Compared to DailyExpertNews’s explosive, much-criticized town hall-esque event with Mr. Trump last month, this was a throwback to earlier, less belligerent times. There was no deluge of fact-checking, no jeers from the audience rising from the stage, and no vigorous questioning of the candidate. Jake Tapper, the anchor who moderated, never felt it necessary to correct Ms. Haley.
Trump and DeSantis remain the focus.
The two big red elephants in the room, Mr. Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, were mostly mentioned indirectly, but those two Republican presidential candidates were there anyway. Ms. Haley reiterated her position that to save Social Security and Medicare, it would be necessary to raise the retirement age for young workers and limit benefits for the wealthy. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis, who once supported similar changes, now say they will do nothing about the programs.
“I think it’s important to be honest with the American people,” said Ms. Haley. “We’re in this situation. Don’t lie to them and say, ‘Oh, we’re not dealing with entitlement reform.’ Yes we do.”
Ms. Haley also criticized Mr. DeSantis for his attacks on Disney as an “awakened” company. She took issue with the Florida governor’s criticism of Disney’s opposition to what critics call its “Don’t Say Gay” law, and even said she would have gone beyond that law to prevent gender talk in schools. and sexuality is discussed. But she called Mr. DeSantis “hypocritical” for accepting tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions from Disney before turning against the company, and for using tax dollars to sue it. “Pick up the phone,” she said. “Get it right, and I just think he’s being hypocritical.”
Haley tried to find the sweet spot for Republicans on social issues.
On social issues, including abortion, gun restrictions and transgender rights, which animate a large segment of Republican voters, Ms. Haley took a conservative line. For example, she defended leading the US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord while at the United Nations. (President Biden rejoined the accord in 2021.) But she showed less punitive rhetoric on the issues that have made Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis pivotal in their messages.
Ms. Haley wondered if she supported a six-week federal abortion ban, like the one her home state of South Carolina recently passed. Any national restriction, she said, would require 60 senators to approve, which she said was so far off that the issue hardly deserved attention.
At the most exciting moment of the night, Ms. Haley described persuading reluctant Republican lawmakers in South Carolina to remove the Confederate battle flag from the State Capitol after a white supremacist massacre of black worshipers at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston in 2015.
She agreed with excluding transgender girls from school sports and even seemed to suggest that allowing “biological boys” into girls’ locker rooms was linked to the high rate of teenage girls who have contemplated suicide.
At the same time, she acknowledged that “we have to be humane” about transgender children. In schools in South Carolina when she was governor, Ms. Haley said, principals made private bathrooms for them. “They were safe and the majority of the students didn’t even have to deal with it,” she said.
Haley contrasted sharply with Trump and DeSantis on foreign policy.
Ms. Haley also resolved disagreements with Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis on foreign policy issues, as she has done in the past. The former UN ambassador challenged Mr DeSantis, who has called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “territorial dispute” – a characterization he has since backtracked – and she rejected Mr Trump’s refusal to say whether Ukraine should go to war to win.
She said both positions represented naive faith in Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. “If Ukraine pulls out,” Ms. Haley said, “we’re all looking at a world war.”
Asked by Mr. Tapper about Mr. Trump’s congratulations to North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, for recently ascending to a leadership role in the World Health Organization, Ms. Haley called Mr. Kim, whose gratifying letters Mr. Trump once praised, a “thug.”
“There’s no reason we should ever congratulate them on being Vice-President of the World Health Organisation,” Ms Haley said.