White House hopeful has also said that “America is not prejudiced against colour”
Washington, Jan 20: White House hopeful Nikki Haley has said that “America is not prejudiced against colour”, while projecting both incumbent President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump as the “twin threats to democracy” to win New Hampshire where a significant number of independent voters will get to choose their representative in the primaries.
“What I want to do is be strong. We won’t know what strong looks like until those numbers come in,” she said at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, the media reported.
Haley’s personal goal is to do better than she did in Iowa – where she finished in third place, 32 points behind Trump and 2 points behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in the state’s caucuses on Monday.
Polls, however, show she is much closer to Trump in New Hampshire, where she is expected to benefit from a more moderate Republican primary electorate – with undeclared voters participating in Tuesdacontest.”America has never been a racist country,” she told a Fox interview earlier this week. She was asked if she believed if the Republican party was racist.
She said she had grown up in a rural county in South Carolina where she experienced racist tendencies. But her parents inculcated the faith in her that America is not a racist country.
“If my parents had not done that, then every black or brown child would not have had a chance in America,” she said, pointing to her own success as becoming both a minority South Carolina Governor and Trump’s appointee as the UN Ambassador.
Haley said her achievements would not have been possible if America had not been founded on the equity principle that is all men are created equal.
“The intent was to do the right thing,” she said of the country’s founding.
“Now, did they have to go fix it along the way? Yes, but I don’t think the intent was ever that we were going to be a racist country.”
Trump rules out Haley as 2024 running mate
Keeping his Vice Presidential choice tightly under wraps, Republican frontrunner and former US President Donald Trump has ruled out Indian-American rival Nikki Haley as his running mate for 2024.
Addressing a rally on Friday at Concord, in the run-up to the New Hampshire nominating contest, Trump said that the former South Carolina Governor, who finished third in Iowa, “is OK, but she is not presidential timber”.
“And when I say that, it probably means she is not going to be chosen as the vice president,” Trump, fresh out of his landslide caucus victory by claiming 50 per cent of the vote, told his supporters, The Hill reported.
“When you say certain things, it sort of takes them out of play, right?” Trump added.
According to former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Haley would be a good pick to balance out Trump’s weaknesses as a candidate. But Haley, who remains confident about her election as the next US President, has said she is not keen on playing Trump’s second-in command. (IANS)