Nikki Haley Backtracks on Pledge To Support GOP Nominee

Former South Carolina Nikki Haley suggested that she no longer feels bound by the pledge she signed last year to the Republican National Committee in which she promised to support the eventual GOP nominee.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” which aired Sunday, Haley acknowledged signing the pledge—which was one of several conditions the RNC put in place for candidates to appear on the GOP primary debate stage—but argued that “the RNC now is not the same RNC.”

The comment was a reference to the recent turmoil the organization has gone through, with longtime chair Ronna McDaniel stepping down last week and Trump putting forth a leadership slate of his own allies, including his daughter-in-law Lara Trump. In February, Haley criticized the move as an attempt to turn the RNC into a “piggy bank” for Trump’s ballooning legal costs.

Haley didn’t directly answer whether she’d throw her support behind Trump if he continues to dominate the GOP primary, saying that an endorsement is “not anything I think about.”

“If you talk about an endorsement, you’re talking about a loss. I don’t think like that,” Haley added. “When you’re in a race, you don’t think about losing. You think about continuing to go forward.”

“I don’t think Donald Trump or Joe Biden should be president. I don’t think we need two candidates who are in their eighties,” she said. “I don’t think we want a Joe Biden who calls his opponents fascist or a Donald Trump who calls his opponents vermin.” Haley has used this latter line in recent weeks, telling reporters that Biden “refers to anyone who doesn’t support him as fascist.” 

A CNN fact-check last week found that Haley was “wrong about Biden, who has never publicly referred to ‘anyone who doesn’t support him’ or ‘all of Donald Trump’s supporters’ as fascist.”

Haley’s comments come as she continues to trail Trump by a significant delegate margin, one that is only likely to increase after this week’s Super Tuesday nominating contests. Trump has bested Haley in every primary state so far, including in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, where he racked up several local endorsements from the state’s politicians. Trump, who refused to sign the RNC pledge, has long refused to commit to supporting the eventual nominee.

In her Sunday interview, Haley vowed to remain in the race “as long as we are competitive, as long as we are showing that there is a place for us.”

“And I think that while you all think about [the RNC pledge], I’m looking at the fact that we had thousands of people in Virginia, we’re headed to North Carolina, we’re going to continue to go to Vermont, and Maine, and all these states to go and show people that there is a path forward,” she said. “And so, I don’t look at what if. I look at, ‘How do we continue the conversation?’”