Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) appeared on “Fox & Friends” this morning.
Haley, who served as the Trump administration's U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, defended her record as a conservative.
But she drew the hosts' ire by saying that Fox had decided to coronate Trump. Remarks that changed the convivial mood in the studio.
As Mediaite reports:
“If you don't win today, do you go on to South Carolina?” Ainsley Earhardt asked, noting that she and Haley both call South Carolina their home state, which Haley served as governor. “You don't want to go into your state and lose that state if you stay in the race, because we'd love to see you in some other capacity down the road. What is your response to that? Do you get out if you lose today?”
“No, I don't get out if I lose today,” Haley flatly replied. “First of all, again, I'm going to say this: we've had 56,000 people vote for Donald Trump. And you're going to say that's what the country wants. That's not what the country wants. We're going to have New Hampshire vote today. They deserve to have the power of their voice.”
“But do you worry the Iowa polls were right?” Earhardt pressed. “Right now you're down double digits in probably the last three major polls. And in South Carolina, I think you're down 40 or 50 points. So you think those polls are that dramatically wrong, and you can make up that difference?”
After Haley pushed back hard on the idea of her dropping from the race, Brian Kilmeade piled on by asking, “There's no scenario where it stops tonight.”
“I'm going to fight no matter what, “Haley said before digging the line of questioning. “I don't care how much y'all want to coronate Donald Trump. At the end of the day, that's not what Americans want. Americans want a choice. And we're going to give them that.”
“I'm really wondering why you think we're the enemy,” Kilmeade retorted.
“Because I've looked at the media, look at the media saying, ‘Oh, this is Donald Trump's to have,' look at the political class all coalescing and saying, ‘everybody needs to get out,'” she claimed. “That's not democracy. That's not who we are, who we are. When have we ever had two people down to two people in New Hampshire? And you say, oh, it's over. We don't do that. South Carolina is an amazing state.”
Haley has joined “Fox & Friends” on multiple occasions recently to respond to former President Trump's attacks on her agenda and criticism she is too moderate. Trump has repeatedly attacked Haley's positions on Social Security and Medicare leading up to Tuesday's New Hampshire primary.
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