The only Republican challenger to Donald Trump said she would not buckle to pressure from the former president and his allies: ‘I feel no need to kiss the ring’.
Nikki Haley vowed to stay in the Republican presidential race against Donald Trump regardless of the outcome of Saturday’s South Carolina primary, saying she would not buckle to pressure from the former president and his allies.
“I feel no need to kiss the ring. And I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him. My own political future is of zero concern,” Haley said Tuesday at a rally in Greenville, South Carolina in an event billed by her campaign as a major address on the state of the Republican race.
In her speech, Haley laid out the case against Trump, in an almost last-ditch effort to sway voters, and laid out the rationale for her candidacy with the primary contest slipping out of her control and Trump poised to deliver a large defeat to his last major challenger.
Haley said that if she dropped out now, voters would be subject to an exhausting general election contest between Trump and President Joe Biden – one for which many Americans have shown little appetite.
“There would be widespread reports of Americans suffering from a bad case of ‘Biden-Trump fatigue’. And it would be true,” Haley said. “A stunning 70 per cent of the country doesn’t want a Biden-Trump rematch. The majority of Americans don’t just dislike one candidate. They dislike both.”
Haley noted speculation that she might use the speech to announce that she was dropping out. “Well I’m not,” she said. “Far from it and I’m here to tell you why.”
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And she said she was not staying in the race in hopes of being selected as Trump’s running mate.
