Feb. 16, 2023: Why Nikki Haley could sneak through in 2024

The Playbook Podcast

POLITICO

Daily News, Politics, Government, News

4.2 • 614 Ratings

🗓️ 16 February 2023

⏱️ 5 minutes

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Summary

Comets have staying power because they orbit the sun, while shooting stars burn up as they crash through the Earth’s atmosphere. The early take on Nikki Haley, who made her GOP presidential primary debut yesterday with a speech in Charleston, S.C., is that she’s more likely to shine brightly for a moment and then fall to Earth. “[H]ers will be a highly conventional campaign,” wrote Rich Lowry after watching her announcement video, and “there will be a number of other candidates with as strong or a stronger case to represent generational change.” In a pretty brutal editorial this morning, the Wall Street Journal says there is “no clear rationale for her candidacy.” Over at the Times, they assembled 10 pundits to assess Haley’s candidacy, and the majority opinion was that the two-term governor and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations shouldn’t be taken very seriously. “Nikki Haley Will Not Be the Next President,” reads the headline. We are old enough to remember when pundits in 2015 declared that Donald Trump would never be president, and we can recall nights in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada in late 2019 and early 2020 when the same was said about Joe Biden. Haley acknowledged the low expectations set by the nattering nabobs. “I’ve been underestimated before,” she said. She entered politics in 2004 by defeating South Carolina’s longest-serving House member. In 2010, she leapt from the statehouse to the governor’s mansion after defeating a field of seasoned politicians in a GOP primary and overcoming her close association with disgraced Gov. Mark Sanford. Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook newsletter Raghu Manavalan is the host and senior editor of POLITICO's Playbook Daily Briefing.Jenny Ament is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Good morning Playbookers. I'm Rogumonovallin. President Joe Biden is expected to speak on the spy balloons, plus is Nikki Haley, a comet, or a shooting star.
0:12.8	Here are the big things we're watching on Thursday, February 16th.
0:17.6	Yasmin Aboudelav from the Washington Post reports that President Joe Biden is expected to give public remarks as early as today about an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon and the three unidentified aerial objects the administration has shut down in recent days.
0:34.7	Biden is also expected to outline his decision to direct National Security
0:39.4	Advisor Jake Sullivan to lead an interagency team to develop parameters for how the U.S.
0:46.0	will deal with unmanned, unidentified airborne objects moving forward. White House officials
0:52.1	said the country has not had such guidelines before, and that
0:55.5	they would likely be finalized by the end of this week. The GOP's debate over how to discuss
1:01.7	entitlements is creating shifting alliances among the party's key power centers. The main dividing
1:08.3	line has been between Senator Rick Scott, who continues to promote a plan
1:12.6	that would sunset Social Security and Medicare after five years, and Senator Mitch McConnell,
1:19.0	who believes the Scott plan costs Republicans in 2022 and has put them at a major disadvantage
1:25.3	vis-a-vis the White House in the budget debates of
1:28.2	2023. The Club for Growth even weighed in this week on Scott's behalf. This posed a bit of a
1:34.4	dilemma for Donald Trump, who has conflicting loyalties to the players and policies involved. Trump
1:40.6	hates McConnell, but he likes his position on Social Security and Medicare. Trump likes Scott, but he likes his position on Social Security and Medicare.
1:45.4	Trump likes Scott, but he hates his position on Social Security and Medicare.
1:50.2	Trump hates the Club for Growth and hates the group's position on Social Security and Medicare.
1:55.4	In the end, Trump's hatred of the Club won out.
1:58.2	Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday night. Bad news for Senator Rick Scott
2:02.2	of Florida. Club for no growth just announced they're going to back him. And without my backing
2:07.2	them, an endorsement from them is the kiss of death. Be careful, Rick, and most importantly,
	...

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