Jay Weber Show transcript 2-19-21 7:44am
What is going on with Nikki Haley?
Talk about sabotaging yourself for no reason.
She’s had two or three years-since she left the Trump administration-to come up with a strategy to deal with Trump questions.
She wants to run for president in 2024. She hasn’t been part of the DC swamp as a governor turned ambassador.
And she’s got about two years yet until she even has to start taking a position on Trump, his legacy, and how she’s going to frame her candidacy.
But she’s sitting down with lefty media outlets and then getting upset when they emphasis everything negative she has to say about him?
What did Nikki Haley expect to happen?
If you missed this-she sat down to do a profile piece with politico, for some reason. It’s an insider website run by former left wing journalists. They are still left-wing, even if a lot of their ‘inside’ coverage of DC is good...
She should have known this wasn’t going to end well. She also, apparently, really said the things that politico quoted her as saying...and so....if she said them she’s got to own them.
She also said trump has quote lost any sort of political viability he was going to have
No, but he’s going to have an influence on the party, and he’s going to continue to have a big influence on the party’s voters.
She knows how loyal trump voters are. So why would she go out of her way to criticize him, and insist he’s not a factor, anymore.
Yes. He is. And even if he’s not likely to run in 2024-he can ensure that her campaign goes nowhere-as he orders his supporters to forget Nikki’. She’s a traitor and a lightweight. She’d be a horrible president.
Right?
What is she doing?
This is -honestly- the dumbest political move that I’ve seen in three years: Nikki Haley intentionally shooting her 2024 candidacy in the head, over and over again.
Because she’s made unnecessarily critical and ugly comments about trump before. The politico and wash times articles both suggest that it’s well known around DC she doesn’t like Trump.
Well- okay-but if you want to win the 2024 nomination, you also need to be smart. Most of those primary voters are going to be trump supporters and/or still have a fondness for him and what he was able to accomplish as president.
I’ll remind you again-
Donald Trump moved the most conservative agenda of any president over the last 60 years-including Reagan-and he was very effective at it. He got major tax cuts thru, struck a genuine blow against hyper-regulation, took on china, negotiated a better NAFTA, closed the border, very effectively dealt with Iran and Islamic terror...etc., etc.
And whether these DC republicans want to admit it-he had a rare and powerful support of GOP voters.
So why would someone who wants to continue virtually all of those policies-and run on them in 2024- as Nikki Haley would-
Why would she-or any GOP candidate-go out of their way to bash trump?
And i know the answer that the never Trump crowd would give: because she’s trying to separate herself from his odor and walk that line that appeals to both sides of the current GOP rift.
She’s trying to seem like the reasonable person in the room- that can see the full open field.
I get that she might be attempting that strategy-but it’s a pretty stupid one when you’ve still got 70 to 80 percent of the Republican Party grassroots angry over the election and how republicans abandoned trump after he lost.
How is joining the ‘traitor class’ going to help your candidacy?
And I’m not saying Haley is a traitor. I hate the idea that neither side can be reasonable. One the one hand-trump was the most effective and most conservative president of our lifetimes-and let’s acknowledge that, never Trumpers...
And on the other hand, Trump isn’t god. He wasn’t infallible. And he made some mistakes. Trump fans need to be willing to acknowledge that, and not fly off the handle every time an ill word is uttered against trump.
But i think most republicans and conservatives do fall into that middle category and have a healthy outlook on things.
Still-they hate to see other republicans trashing Trump. Because he-was- a great and effective president- even if he didn’t handle the loss well.
It’s just dumb for any republican in office to go out of their way to trash trump.
And not because trump was infallible.
But because 70 to 80 percent of the GOP grass roots-dammit-doesn’t want to hear a bunch of trump bashing now, from our own side of the aisle.
We got four years of that from the left. We have no tolerance or patience for it now, from republicans who think it’s now smart to do it, too.
I have been talking with GOP leaders at the county level in WI recently, and to a person, they say: Jay, you would not believe how angry our members get when trump is criticized. They don’t want to ‘move on’ from the winning and the fire that he brought to the party.
They do not want to hear fellow republicans criticizing him. They have no patience, or grace, or warmer feelings for the intra-party whining going on.
And so-I’ll tell you now: any republican candidate running next year who thinks it’s going to benefit them if they ‘separate themselves from trump’ by being critical....like Haley is or if they ‘try to walk the line’ and think they appear more reasonable because they will criticize Trump.
I’m tellin’ yah now-they are reading the room wrong.
And maybe- three years from now-as the next presidential primaries start to get underway-maybe its different story. A lot can happen between now and then-
But what isn’t going to happen-is that the people who joined the GOP because they love trump, are going to turn on him.
That’s not going to happen. And so trashing him between now and then is not going to be a resume builder. And it’s not going to make you appear to be more honest and fair and thoughtful.
It is going to be viewed as being unnecessarily nasty, instead of being grateful, for the trump years.
And I’m talking as someone who criticized trump when he deserved it, for four years, and will continue to do so. But I was never going out of my way to do it, or being nasty about it.
And I can hear some push back already from candidates: so jay, we can’t even give our honest take about trump? If it’s genuine?
Not if you don’t want trump supporters to hate you, no. Just keep it to yourself.
Do you want to win? Or do you just have to express. That criticism? And by doing so, make yourself look like an ungrateful ass. Because that’s how it comes off to most Trump supporters.
It’s your choice-but you’re a dope if you think you just...have...got...to...make what i didn’t like about trump known...
Fight the urge... If you want to win. Give the man some respect. Or at least some respectful silence.
Yes.
What Nikki Haley is doing is stupid.
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