“It’s my understanding that she has been pressuring him to really go out there and defend himself in this particular case,” said former White House press secretary and communications director Stephanie Grisham in an interview Saturday with MSNBC.
She was talking about former President Donald Trump, 75; his wife, 53-year-old former First Lady Melania Trump, and the $83 million jury verdict announced Friday against Trump in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case. Previously, another jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll, 80.
According to Carroll’s allegations, Trump sexually abused her while he was with Melania.
“Donald Trump wants to be the presumptive Republican nominee and we’re talking about $83 million in damages,” said his last lingering opponent for the GOP 2024 presidential nomination, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, 52, in an X post. “We’re not talking about fixing the border. We’re not talking about tackling inflation. America can do better than Donald Trump and Joe Biden.”
Although the Carroll case is one of just many legal issues Trump faces as he campaigns for a second term in the Oval Office, his popularity among Republican voters remains high. He handily won both the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire primary, where Haley was polling closer to him than she is nationally.
Per FiveThirtyEight, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to drop out of the race has only helped Trump nationally. He was polling at around 60% with both DeSantis and Haley in the race, and as of Saturday, he was polling at 70.7% to Haley’s 14.5% and held 32 delegates to her 17.
Trump and Haley’s next stop on the campaign trail is South Carolina. There, FiveThirtyEight data showed that Trump was polling at around 63%, compared to Haley’s 29%. Haley was formerly the governor of the state.
She has vowed to stay in the race despite Trump’s solid position as frontrunner. He does still face legal issues that could keep him off ballots or send him to prison.
“At one point in this campaign, there were 14 of us running, and we were at two percent in the polls. Well, I’m a fighter,” said Haley. “Now, we’re the last one standing next to Donald Trump, and today we got close to half of the vote. We still have a ways to go, but we keep moving up.”
She also said that “with Donald Trump, Republicans have lost almost every competitive election,” and that “a Trump nomination is a Biden win and a Kamala Harris presidency.”
Haley has called for competency tests for senior citizen politicians – both Trump and current Democrat President Joe Biden fall into that category.
“I’ve long called for mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75. Trump claims he’d do better than me on one of those tests. Maybe he would, and maybe he wouldn’t,” she said after New Hampshire.
According to USA Today, some polls do back up Haley’s claims that she has a better chance than Trump to beat Biden in the November general election.
William F. B. O'Reilly, a Republican strategist from New York said Haley should keep campaigning until the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, per the outlet.
“Ambassador Haley would be ill-advised to leave the race after New Hampshire, win or lose, with so much criminal litigation on the table for Trump,” he said. “A single conviction could change the entire trajectory of this race. Why would she ever give up last-alternative-candidate-standing status?"