Nikki Haley Pronounces Trump Politically Dead: He ‘Let Us Down,’ Can’t ‘Let That Ever Happen Again’

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Former Ambassador Nikki Haley declared ex-President Donald Trump politically dead in a new interview, saying he can’t possibly run for federal office again.

Haley offered the comments in an interview for a Politico Magazine profile by Tim Alberta, and she did so by way of proposing that the natural consequences of Trump’s actions should be a sufficient substitute for impeachment, or any other form of accountability:

“He’s not going to run for federal office again,” Haley said.

But what if he does? Or at least, what if he spends the next four years threatening to? Can the Republican Party heal with Trump in the picture?

“I don’t think he’s going to be in the picture,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far.”

This was the most certainty I’d heard from any Republican in the aftermath of January 6. And Haley wasn’t done.

“We need to acknowledge he let us down,” she said. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

Elsewhere in the interview, however, Haley defended and stood by her past support for Trump, saying “he may have been brash. He may have been blunt. But he was someone who cared about the country. … I still stand by that. I don’t think we should ever apologize for the policies that we fought for and the things that we did during his four years.”

Haley has previously straddled the line between mildly condemning Trump and defending him from impeachment, calling his actions “not great” while arguing to “give the man a break.”

Her posture in the Politico interview is part of an ever-sharpening continuum of that premise.

While not exactly a profile in courage, Haley’s remarks can be fairly seen as an indication that the political fear that many see as keeping Republicans from opposing Trump may be eroding, if not quite fast enough to affect the outcome of his impeachment trial. We’ll find out about that in short order.

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