Nikki Haley: GOP Is ‘A Ship With A Hole In It,’ I’m ‘The Life Raft’

 Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley said on Tuesday night that the Republican Party was a ship with a hole in it.

Haley made the remarks during a CNN interview with Dana Bash as results from Michigan’s presidential primary were being broadcast live, which showed the former president beating Haley in the state by more than 30 points.

“Look at what’s happened in Michigan,” Haley said. “You look back in 2012, Michigan was such a bright spot. I was there. They had just passed right to work. They were winning seats up and down the ticket. It was just a great time for Michigan. But ever since Donald Trump became president, they’ve lost the governor’s mansion; they’ve lost the state House; they’ve lost the state Senate. The same thing has happened in Minnesota. I was in Colorado earlier today, they haven’t had a Republican get over 45% statewide since Donald Trump was president in 2016. It is a pattern we continue to see.”

“You’re seeing the same thing whether you look at all the early states, Donald Trump didn’t get 40% of any of the Republican primary vote, it is a problem,” Haley said, even though Trump has secured more than half the votes in every primary contest so far.

“He’s not bringing people into the party, he’s pushing people out of the party,” Haley continued. “Colorado today has 10% less Republicans than they had before when Donald Trump was president. And so this is just a pattern we continue to see.”

“But more than that, look at what’s happened to the Republican Party. The Republican Party is now not just changing based on tone. It’s changing based on policy,” she said. “Donald Trump’s not talking anything about shrinking government, stopping spending, cutting out the waste — none of that. And then he’s changed the whole idea of peace through strength. We used to always talk about the strength of our alliances. Now you’ve got Donald Trump basically saying he’s going to tell Putin to go and invade our allies who stood with us after 9/11. It’s all a shift.”

 

When pressed about why Republican voters were not choosing her, Haley said: “What I’m saying to my Republican Party family is, we’re in a ship with a hole in it and we can either go down with the ship and watch the country go socialist Left, or we can see that we need to take the life raft and move in a new direction.”

“That’s what this is about. It is very telling when now the RNC is not about winning races up and down the ticket. The RNC is now about Donald Trump. They made that very clear. So now that’s become his legal slush fund,” she stated.

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