INTERVIEW: Nikki Haley Unpacks America's Racist Roots, Abortion, Immigration & Her Plan To Save The Country

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that hands up in the morning. The breakfast Club. Morning.
Everybody is j n V.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Charlamagne the guide. We are to breakfast Club. We got
a special guest in the.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
Building, Republican presidential candidate South Carolina Nikki Hamley.

Speaker 4 (00:14):
That's right, welcome, Good morning, the morning. Thank you for
having me.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
How are you all?

Speaker 4 (00:18):
Is good? I can't complain. Listen, South Carolina's still proud
of you. Keep doing what you're doing.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I read recently
that you got swatted twice twice since since the end
of December. They were targeting high profile politicians.

Speaker 4 (00:31):
Yeah, and you know the hard part about that is
I wasn't home, but we take care of my parents.
They're eighty seven and ninety. And when you have twenty
five people show up with guns drawn, Jesus to them, like,
what's happened in our country? Come on, I mean, we
can't keep living like this. It's not normal, it's not healthy.
There's nothing good about what's happening right now in the country.

(00:52):
And look, we have a chance to change that. That's
what I'm trying to do.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
They'd kick down the door or anything like that, or
did they?

Speaker 4 (00:58):
They actually they saw my peers through the window. They
told them to put their hands up. They came through
the door, and I mean immediately, like my parents had
their hands up and they came in and separated them,
talked to them. I mean, it was just it was
a traumatic shita twice. The second time they didn't come
in because it had happened once before, so they were

(01:19):
more cautious. The first time it was full on.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
They didn't know it was your house, South Carolina.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
They didn't know.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Wow, how did they make you feel?

Speaker 4 (01:29):
Look, the reason I'm doing this. I don't want my
kids to live like this were I know, we're better
than this. I grew up in a small rural town
and we took care of each other. It was neighbors
taking care of neighbors, and there was just something simple
about it, and there was just something that was that
was good. You genuinely wanted to take care of people,

(01:50):
and we've lost that. I mean, right now, you see hatred,
you see division, you see anger. I mean, you see
these things where they're trying to like undercut people, and
it's just you know, it was exacerbated after COVID, but
it's all the more reason why we need to go
back and say, wait a minute, stop taking all this
so personally. This isn't personal. This is just about getting

(02:13):
our country back on track.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Swatting is personal. Though.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
If I call somebody's house, if I say, hey, this
is going down at this house, that was personal.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
Well, I mean it's personal from a political perspective. Yeah,
I mean that's where it's a blood sport to run
for office these days. But yeah, I mean that's it is.
But it goes to show why and it's why I'm
so determined to finish this. Yeah, is because I know
America is better than this.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
But do you lose the love for it?

Speaker 4 (02:36):
Right?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
You just told us some of the reasons why you
want to do this right, and then you talk about
some of the the sides that are against that.

Speaker 4 (02:42):
Right.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
You want to do it because you said you want
to help people. You want to be the person that
you know what you grew up on and what you
wanted to see. But then you talk about them swatting
your house, which is making your life miserable, in your parents' life,
and your parents could have had a heart attack, you know.
Then you talk about Donald Trump attacking the way that
he's attacking you. I mean, they dive into your personal life,
they dive into an alleged to fed they dive into
anything that you've ever done or allegedly have ever done

(03:05):
into your life. And it's when does it get to
the point you be like, excuse part of my friends,
but fuck this, I don't want to do this anything.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
I mean, it's all lies. But what they don't realize
is politics is the art of distraction. The more they
do that, the more motivated I get, because it's everything
that's wrong with politics. It's everything that's wrong in this
country that we have to clean up. So I do this.
I'll take the pain, I'll take whatever it is. I'm
a tough girl. I can handle it. This is politics

(03:31):
is not personal for me. This is about the fact
that we can't be okay with our country like this.
We can't be okay with two eighty year olds running
for president. We can't be okay with the fact that, look,
the seventy five percent of Americans are saying they don't
want a Trump Biden rematch. The majority of Americans disprove
of Trump and disprove of Biden. You know, both these

(03:53):
fellas put us trillions of dollars in debt that our
kids are never going to forgive them for. At what
point do we not say, you know what, maybe we
need to go with a new generational leader that these
older guys don't want to let go of the power.
That's what this has always been. But the problem is,
look at what happened after the New Hampshire election. So

(04:14):
we got forty three percent. We started with fourteen candidates
in the race. You know, one by one we got
rid of the fellows, right, So then it's me and
Trump going in. I started with two percent in Iowa,
I ended up with twenty percent. We go to New Hampshire,
we get forty three percent. Now, the way to look
at that is Trump, as an incumbent, didn't get forty
three percent. He's so upset he throws a temper tantrum

(04:37):
on stage and talks about revenge. Then the next day
he says, anybody that supports Nicki Haley is not going
to be part of MAGA. If you're running for president,
this is a story of addition. You should want everybody,
you shouldn't push anybody away. And so, you know, we
had fun. We've always had fun with it. So we

(04:58):
did these barred permanently. T We sold fifteen thousand T shirts.
Then the next day he goes and pushes the Republican
Party to say that he's the nominee to get me out.
We don't do coronations in this country. Two states have voted.
You need twelve hundred and fifteen delegates. He has thirty two.
I have seventeen. This is far from over. We're not

(05:18):
giving up. And this is everything that's wrong, the chaos
of all of this is everything that's wrong in our country.
And you look, we lost five amazing souls, three soldiers
in Iraq and Syria, and then you've got the two
Navy seals, and this is what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
What do you think of responsor that today should be?

Speaker 4 (05:36):
Well, I think, first of all, look at how we
got here. This would never have happened if Biden wouldn't
have fallen all over himself to get back into Irandi
when he lifted the sanctions. You sent billions of dollars
to Iran's proxies Hamas who theis and HESBLA, and what
do they do? They don't take care of their people.
They go and they say death to America. Then you

(05:58):
don't My husband's deployed right now. We expect America to
take care of our men and women when they're overseas.
He didn't do something after the first strike. He didn't
do something after the second strike. One hundred and sixty
five strikes. Dozens of people injured with brain injuries, and
you're waiting for people to die to do something. That's

(06:19):
not what you do. What we should do is put
the sanctions back on immediately. The second thing is go
take out the operations where they're sending these drones and
missiles from in Iraqan Syria. And then thirdly, go after
the military commanders making these decisions. Take out one or
two of those RGC members. That's what we'll get their attention.
You don't have to go bomber on. This is not

(06:41):
about hitting hard, it's about hitting smart. That's what we
need to do.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
You know, you mentioned that in numbers in New Hampshire
and numbers in.

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Iowa, and it's clear to me that when you look
at those numbers, Republicans are looking for something different. A
lot of Republicans are looking for something different. So why
are conservatives willing to just turn the Republican.

Speaker 1 (06:58):
Party over to you?

Speaker 4 (07:01):
Know, I think that people I voted for Trump twice,
I was proud to serve America in his administration. I
think people see that he never got to announce a
credit or a moment's piece, and they see him in
these fights and they think that they need to show
him thank you by being with him. But if you

(07:22):
look at that the speech after New Hampshire, or even
the court cases and all that, he never talks about
the American people. He never talks about what we're going
to do to get this wasteful spending out of the
way and get our economy back on track. He never
talks about how we're going to get our kids reading
again and go back to the basics in education. He
never talks about securing the border unless he's saying stop

(07:44):
it because I don't want it to happen until the election.
I mean, he never talks about law and order in
this country. He doesn't talk about these wars. That's what
you got to be talking about. It's and honestly, with
Biden and Trump, they care more about their investigations in
themselves then they do about what we need to do
in the country. And that's every reason why we need

(08:04):
to go in a new direction.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Why did you vote for him twice? If you feel
this way about Trump, why did you feel that you
had to vote for him twice?

Speaker 4 (08:10):
The reason I voted for him the first time was
it was clear that our country needed a self correction.
Trump was good at breaking things. We needed to break
some things. We needed to rattle the cages. And then,
you know the second time I voted for him is
I didn't want Biden. I saw that Biden was Obama
two point zero, and I didn't want to take that

(08:32):
chance of where he was going to take us. I
knew they wanted to get back in the Iran deal.
I knew that they weren't serious about closing the border.
I knew that the wasteful spending that we had seen
was going to happen, And so I voted for Trump
thinking that he was going to do more of the same.
But the reality is now chaos follows Donald Trump. Everywhere
he goes, chaos follows him. And we can't be a

(08:54):
country in disarray in a world on fire and go
through four more years of chaos. We won't survive it.
There will be a first female president. It's either going
to be Kamala Harris, or it's going to be me,
and it should send a chill up. Everyone's fine thinking
about the fact that it would be Kamala Harris.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Why wouldn't you vote for Hillary in twenty.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Sixty because I don't agree with anything that Hillary has said.
I don't know that there's any policies of hers that
I agree with, and so for me, Look, the reason
I'm running now is because I'm an accountant. I think
it's finally time we have an account in the White House.
I've been a two term governor that took a double
digit on employment state and turned it into an economic powerhouse.

(09:33):
I dealt with Russia, China and Iran every day at
the UN. I know what it takes to prevent more,
and I think it's time that we have somebody that's
a new generational leader that's not looking at the past
but actually looking at solutions going forward.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Now, you talk about your policies and some of the
policies and the things that you stand on. You also
said that you felt like Biden would have been I
guess Obama two point zero. What didn't you like about
the Obama administration that you would have changed immediately? And
what were you we are a again, there are cople
and you said something about Kamala. I want to ask
why you said, if Kamala was president, why I would
send chills down.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
So a couple of things. I think with Obama that
was if you go back, that's when we really started
to feel the division. That's when it was white supremacist.
Though well, no, I think it was. It was everything.
Everything was exaggerated with the Obama administration. It became more
about gender, it became more about race. It became more

(10:26):
about separating Americans instead of bringing them together.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
The right wing media, though, well, they were scared enough
of a black president.

Speaker 4 (10:33):
Look, I don't think everybody is at fault. I'm not
saying that one person did this, but I'm saying under
that administration, it really did cause some You just felt
people felt like they were being put in camps through
that administration. The second thing is I saw he was
very much an Iranian sympathizer. He very much kept wanting

(10:56):
to support and do things with iron I think that's
incredibly dangerous. This is a culture that says death to America,
and you have to always be careful. A lot of
spending happened on his watch. That started us down that spiral,
and then Obama did a lot of things by executive order,
and that really started the He did a lot by
executive order. Then Trump came in and reversed it all

(11:18):
by executive order. Then Biden went and reversed it all. There,
you've got to do it the hard way. You got
to get Congress to come together and do those things,
because that makes it permanent. So what that did is
that created leaders from around the world saw you just
wait out a president. But more than that, people got
used to just quick fixes instead of coming together and
doing the hard work. So it was more about what

(11:41):
do we need to do to move us forward in
a way that we're lifting up everybody, not a select view.
That's when I started to see it. Kamala, it's from
an experience standpoint. I mean, she's never been a governor,
she's never had executive experience. She was a senator for
a couple of years. But the things that Biden gave her,
she didn't do anything with them. The border, she didn't

(12:03):
do anything. I've spent more time at the border than
she's spent at the border. When it came to artificial intelligence,
he gave her that she didn't do anything with it.
America's behind everybody else when it comes to artificial intelligence.
I just haven't seen her do anything. She went to overseas.
He sent her to a foreign policy conference. She should
have been talking about how we're going to have more

(12:25):
allies with Philippines in India and South Korea and Japan
and all that. She didn't say anything, and China just
had their way with that conversation. It's not about her personally.
It's about the fact that we are looking at a
dangerous time in our country. This is not the time
to go and put somebody in there and say, oh,

(12:45):
we're going to do this because you do it. Because
we've got to get the right person in there, and
stop with the labels, and stop with the division, and
stop with who's in which camp, and start focusing on
how we're going to get America patriotic again and loving
each other again.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Question about the executive orders, if there's like immediate needs
that you need to be met in that moment and
you can't get Congress on the same page, I don't
have a problem with a president take an executive order.
I wish it would be something more permanent, but I
like that type of leadership.

Speaker 4 (13:14):
So I think you do executive orders were meant to
for right now. For example, Biden should do an executive
order to stop everything on the border, and then Congress
should finish it. It's starting and then finishing. So if
you do it in that respect, you're fixing things quickly,
but you're going with a plan to actually fix it.
You just don't want to do it because it's the

(13:34):
lazy way out right. You want to do it the
hard ways.

Speaker 1 (13:38):
Let's talk about our beautiful state of South Carolina.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
That's what the next Republican primary is now based on
simple math. People say there is no path for you
to win South Carolina.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
So is it about ego at this point? Because it
feels like it could be like a suicide missione, you know.

Speaker 4 (13:52):
But why are people saying that. What's the proof in that?
So I moved twenty five points in New Hampshire in
three weeks. Rating in South Carolina is seventy six percent.
People like what I did as governor. My job now
is to show them that I could be a good president.
We had an event in North Charleston. We had one
thousand people. We had an event in Malden, we had

(14:14):
fifteen hundred people. We were in Conway, we had eight
hundred people. People are coming out because they want something different,
they want something new, and they trusted me as their
governor and they appreciated what I did. I now have
to show them that we can translate that as president.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
It seems like they like you in South Carolina, but
it feels like they love Trump. I was looking at
it and says, he said, a majority of the federal,
state and local Republican elected officials endorsed Trump.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Does that hurt you?

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Do you know why that happened? Do you know why
that happened? So they're saying, you know. A reporter said, so,
how do you feel that, you know, the governor of
South Carolina, you know, is standing behind Donald Trump. I said,
I'm sorry, you mean the one that I defeated when
I became governor. And then they said, well, what do
you think about you know the political established up there.
I said, you mean the group that I forced them

(15:03):
to have to show their votes on the record because
they were hiding in voice votes. The group that I
forced them to disclose their incomes when they didn't want
to show it. The group that I vetoed half a
billion dollars of their pet projects, because that's not doing
anything to lift up South Carolinians. I don't want. No.
I never Republicans and Democrats. I call you out. If

(15:23):
you do something wrong that's not lifting people up, I'm
going to call you out. I don't care who you are.
So the political class was never there. I mean, you
mean Lindsey Graham, who's so stuck next to Trump that
he is scared to say anything against him. You mean
Tim Scott, who I appointed as Senator, but I defeated
him in this race. No, I don't want any of them.

(15:44):
It's the people I want. I didn't have the political
class when I ran against the longest serving legislator in
a primary. I didn't have the political class when I
ran as governor against an attorney general, a lieutenant governor,
a very popular congressman, and a state senator. I don't
want the political class. Now Trump has surrounded himself with
a group of the political elite who've done nothing for Americans.

(16:08):
They haven't done anything when it comes to our economy,
nothing when it comes to education, nothing when it comes
to securing our border. And that's who he's going to
surround himself with It's exactly why I'm running.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Face with Tim Scott because you did appoint him. Did
you feel like that was a slap in the face
and the fact that he loves Donald Trump and wants
tongue kiss him, did you feel like that was a
last one?

Speaker 4 (16:26):
You know, people have to deal with their decisions. He's
going to have to sleep with that one day.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
How did you feel when you saw him say I
love you to Donald Trump in that way?

Speaker 4 (16:35):
He's going to have to sleep with that one, not.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Sleep with him. But like we know, did he ever
tell you that he loved you after you appointed him?

Speaker 4 (16:40):
In twenty twelve, he didn't even call or text me
to tell me that he was going to endorse Donald Trump. Wow,
he didn't call or text me to tell me he
was running for president.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
So Yo, are on good terms though?

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Right?

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Yo?

Speaker 4 (16:52):
I have always thought he was a friend. I appointed
him one because I thought he could do the job,
and not just to point South Carolina, but too. I
thought it took South Carolina to a new level. That's
what I wanted. That's what I always focused on in
every job I've ever had. What can you do to
bring out the best in people. That's what a leader does,

(17:15):
You bring out the best in people. I still think
appointing Tim Scott was the right decision. I'll always say that.
I'm proud of the fact that we did that. I'm
proud of the fact that South Carolinians, you know, elected
him after I appointed him. But look, he's got to
live with that decision.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
I don't how much of it do you take personals
from all the politicians up here.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
You can't take it personally. I mean the reason I'm politics.
If you take it personally, it becomes about you. This
is not about me. This is about the fact that I
don't want my kids to live like this. I don't
want your girls to live like this. They deserve better.
You look at anybody in their twenties. They think both
parties are crazy, and I don't think they're wrong. Like

(17:57):
the extremes on both sides are so toxic. Think about it.
If somebody puts down a piece of legislation in Congress,
everybody wants to know whose it is before they decide
whether to support it. That's when you know you've hit
rock bottom.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
You know you're challenging Trump now.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
But early on it felt like none of the Republican
candidates were willing to challenge Donald Trump on anything except
for Chris Christie.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
And I always ask, you, know, how can you be.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Looked at as a leader if you look like you're
just constantly kissing up the Trump like you constantly look
like you're just a lackey you wanting.

Speaker 1 (18:28):
To be his running me.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
I've never kissed up to Trump. I've always told him
the hard truths when I was in the administration. The
reason we work together is when he did something good,
I worked hard to make America strong. When he did
something wrong, I showed up in his office or I
called him and I would say, you cannot do this,
but instead you could do X, Y or Z. There
were fourteen people in this race. I was disciplined and focused.
I needed to get the others out. I knew it

(18:51):
was going to be him at the end. He was
not my focus in the beginning. He is my focus now.
That's why you've heard me come out and say, this
is the difference between him and me. This is the
fact that we have to look at the fact that
he now wants to raise taxes on every American by
putting a ten percent tariff. Think about that. That's taxes
you're going to raise on every baby stroller, on every appliance,

(19:13):
twenty six hundred dollars more per family. When he gets
into office, everybody talks about how good is our economy
was with him, it was good, But at what cost?
He put US eight trillion dollars in debt in four years.
Now we're like having to figure out how we're going
to pull out of that. Look at what happened and
you know now he said yesterday the stock market's great

(19:35):
because people are excited about him being president. How many
more times are you going to let him lie about
things that aren't true and say, you know what, something's
not quite right. And this also is about a general election.
This is about who can win. He can't win moderates,
he can't win independence, he can't win suburban women. He

(19:57):
lost in twenty eighteen, he lost in twenty he lost
in twenty twenty two. How many more times do you
have to lose before you say, you know what, maybe
that's not the guy.

Speaker 3 (20:06):
So question, if you know, let's say Trump does win, right,
and then when's the whole election?

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Would you be in this cabinet? Because the thing I
hear Republicans do.

Speaker 3 (20:14):
Y'all will say all these things about him, but then
when he asks you to be in an administration, you'll
be a part of it.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
I have said to everyone, I am running for president.
I don't play for a second. I don't want vice president.
I don't want cabinet. I don't want anything like that.
I am running because I think we have a country
to save.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Would you be in it if he asked you.

Speaker 4 (20:32):
I don't want anything. I don't want anything. No, I
don't want anything. I have said it in every way
I know how to say it. I don't want to
be vice president. I don't want a position. I am
running for president. That's my focus.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
A lot of women don't necessarily love your stance when
it comes to abortion, and why is your stance that
way towards abortion and abortion's rights and women's rights.

Speaker 4 (20:53):
Well, do you know what my stance is?

Speaker 1 (20:54):
I'm asking.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Okay, I can tell you what it says right now.
It says Haley opposes abortion rights, explaining that her opposition
is in her past difficulty in conceiving children.

Speaker 4 (21:02):
Okay, so that is the Democrat party's talking points. I'm
going to tell you where I stand on it. The
issue of abortion is personal for every woman and every man.
It needs to be treated that way. I am personally,
unapologetically pro life, not because the Republican Party tells me
to be, but because my husband was adopted and I

(21:24):
had trouble having both of my children. Having said that,
I don't judge anyone for being pro choice any more
than I want them to judge me for being pro life.
So let's talk about how we got here. Prior to
nineteen seventy three, you had forty six state laws that
said where people where states were on abortion. And in

(21:45):
nineteen seventy three, unelected justices threw out those forty six
state laws and said abortion at any time, anywhere, for
any reason. Now, the unelected justices have said we should
always have had that in the hands of the people.
That's where I think it does belong. Some states that
have gone more pro life, I personally welcome that you've
got some that have gone more pro choice. I wish

(22:06):
that wasn't the case, but the people decided. The decision
that we're having now is should there be a federal law?
But no one is telling the American people the truth
in order to have a federal law, you have to
have a majority of the House, sixty Senate votes, and
a signature of a president. We haven't had sixty Republican
senators over one hundred years. We might have forty five

(22:28):
pro life senators. So no Republican president can ban abortions
any more than a Democrat president can ban these state laws.
So what should we do? We need to find consensus.
Can't we agree to ban late term abortions. Can't we
agree to encourage adoptions and good quality adoptions. Can't we
agree that doctors and nurses who don't believe in abortions

(22:50):
shouldn't have to perform them. Can't we agree that contraception
should be accessible? And can't we agree that no state
law should say to a woman if she's had an abortion,
that she's going to go to jail or get the
death penalty. Let's start there. I am not going to
demonize this issue. They if the Fellas have done this
all wrong. You have to humanize this issue. Our number

(23:10):
one goal is how do we save as many babies
as we can and support as many moms as we can.
I had a roommate in college who was raped. I
wouldn't wish on anyone to go through what she went through,
wondering if she was pregnant. Everybody has a story. We
need to be respectful of people's stories. You won't hear

(23:32):
me demonizing or judging. The problem is the Democrat party
has put fear in women. The Republican parties put judgment.
There's no place for fear or judgment when you're talking
about something this personal. The only thing you should have
is respects.

Speaker 3 (23:48):
Let's talk about some of the stuff that you kind
of stumbled over the last few weeks. Right Like, when
you say America has never been a racist country, I wonder, then,
what did you consider the tragic shooting of a manual
and me, what was that? Was that motivated by racism?

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Absolutely it was motivated. But I don't think America is
a racist country. You know, I think that America, when
you look at all, men should be created equal, you know,
given life, liberty in the pursuit of happiness. We should
strive to say, how do we make today better than yesterday.

(24:24):
We are not a perfect country. We've got stains in
our history that we should never repeat. But if I
grew up as a brown girl in a small rural
town and my parents told me that I lived in
a racist country. I would never have thought I had
a chance. I want every child to know, is there

(24:45):
racism in our country? Yes? Should we call it out
every time? You bet? But you can be anything you
want to be without anyone getting in your way. I
just don't want kids to feel that. I want them
to know they've got a chance. I want them to
know they can do something. That shooting at Mother Emmanuel

(25:05):
was truly the hardest thing I've ever gone through in
my life, because you had nine amazing souls who did
what so many South Carolinians do. On a Wednesday night,
they went to Bible study, and on that night someone
else showed up. He didn't look like them, he didn't
act like them, he didn't sound like them. They didn't

(25:27):
call the cops, they didn't throw him out. Instead, they
pulled up a chair and they prayed with him for
an hour, and when they bowed their heads in that
last prayer, he began to shoot. These were people like
ethel Ance. She had lost her daughter two years prior
to breast cancer, and she would go around Mother Emmanuel

(25:49):
Church cleaning the church, singing one day at a time.
Sweet Jesus, that's all I ask of You. Give me
the strength to do every day what I have to do.
Taiwan'sa saying, our youngest victim had just finished college, had
the world in front of them, and on that night
he stood in front of his eighty seven year old
great aunt, Susie, and looked at the killer and said,

(26:11):
you don't have to do this. We mean no harm
to you. Or it was people like Cynthia Hurd, whose
life motto was simply to be kinder than necessary. That's
who these people were. And when this happened, it brought
South Carolina to her knees. And if you remember, this
was on the heels of Ferguson. Every place in the

(26:31):
country was on fire. But what we did, we didn't
have riots, we had vigils, we didn't have protests. We
had prayer, and we brought out the best in South
Carolinians to say it's time, and we brought that Confederate
flag down. That's the way we have to go forward.
I knew when I asked for the Confederate flag to

(26:54):
come down that it was going to be an impossible feat.
I had talked to legislators prior when I first became
governor to see if there was any any will to
move that Confederate flag because we were losing a lot
of economic development. Lots of things were happening from that
flag flying right in front of the state House. Republicans
and Democrats, whites and blacks told me not to touch

(27:16):
it because of what they went through in two thousand.
There were you know, death threats, all this that it
tore the state up, so they didn't want to touch it.
When this happened, we needed to do something. And what
brought it to light was, you know, the national media
came in and they wanted to define this. They wanted
to make it about guns. They wanted to make it
about racism, they wanted to make it about the death penalty.

(27:39):
It was, but the point was I strong armed them
and said there will be a time where we talk
about all that, but right now, we have nine souls
we need to put to rest. I didn't have that
luxury because two days later the killer came out draped
in the Confederate flag, and I told my staff, I said,
I want you to call four meetings. I said, I
want you to call Democrat leadership, Republican leadership. I want

(28:03):
you to call the congressional delegation, and I want you
to call community leaders. And I said, don't tell them
why I'm calling, because I knew they wouldn't show up.
And in every one of those meetings, I said, at
three o'clock today, I'm going to ask for the Confederate
flag to come down. And if you will stand with me,
I will forever be grateful, and if you won't, I'll
never tell anyone you were in this room. And I

(28:24):
had my husband with me that day because I didn't
think anybody was going to stand with me. And at
three o'clock we had Democrats, we had Republicans, we had men,
we had women, we had blacks, we had whites. But
that was the easy part. It took two thirds vote
to get the flag down. Now, the Senate passed it quickly.

(28:44):
And the reason they passed it quickly is because Senator
Pintney was the pastor of Mother Emmanuel Church. And I'll
never get over the night that I knew that happened,
that I called him and I said, Senator, I am
so sorry about what happened. I will be their first
thing in the morning. Whatever your families in congregation need,

(29:08):
we will be there. It haunts me to this day
that that phone was ringing in his pocket. He was
at Mother Emmanuel and he was killed. So the Senate
passed it quickly because their brother had died. The House
was a big issue now in South Carolina. Half the
people saw the Confederate flag as heritage and tradition. The

(29:31):
other half saw it as slavery and hate. My job
wasn't to judge either side. My job was to get
them to see the best in themselves and go forward.
The House didn't want to budge. I told the Speaker
of the House, I said, I need that flag to
come down. He came back, he said, all right, I
did the best I could. They'll bring the flag down,

(29:51):
but they want to put a different type of flag
up there, related to the Confederacy. I said, no flag.
A couple of days later, he comes back, he's like,
all right, we got it. They're willing to bring the
flag down. And I said, great, let's do it immediately.
Let's get this done. And he said, well, there's just
one little thing. He said, they want to keep the

(30:11):
flag pole up. What now? I South Carolina politics is
truly a blood sport. I knew what that meant if
they didn't bring the flag pole down. As soon as
the national media left, flag was going back up. I said,
I want the flag down. I want the flag pole down.

(30:33):
He said, why you could declare when you could tell
everybody you got the flag down. I said, because I
don't want any other governor to go through what this
state just had to go through. I said, get the flag,
and he goes, I can't do it. So I went
to the Republican Caucus and I said, I want to
tell you a story. I said, when I was growing up,

(30:55):
my dad would go to the big city of Columbia,
and sometimes I'd get to ride with him, and he
loved to stop at produce stands. He liked buying directly
from farmers. And I said, and one day we went
to a produce stand and he was getting his things,
and I saw the two people at the register and
they looked alarmed. My dad wears a turban, and a

(31:18):
couple minutes later, two police cars drove up, and the
police officer stood next to the owners. My dad kept
getting his produce. He went to the counter, he paid,
and he thanked them. We got in the car and
my dad didn't speak to me the whole way home
because he hoped I didn't notice what just happened. I

(31:39):
knew exactly what happened. And I told the caucus, I said,
when I go to get on the state plane, I
sometimes have to pass that produce stand, and every time
I passed that produce stand, I feel pain. I said,
don't let a single child ride past our statehouse and
see that flag and feel pain. Get the flag and

(32:00):
get the poll down. One am that night they voted,
and we brought it down.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
A question when you look at the inequalities in America
and education, you know, home ownership, employment and wealth, healthcare,
can you admit that their America is systemically and structurally
a racist country.

Speaker 4 (32:19):
I think culture has a lot to do with it, right,
but it's more of if you look at that, how
do you fix it when you.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Say all men are created equal, No, they weren't, because
we were label three fifths of a human Black people.

Speaker 4 (32:30):
Were right, and we made that wrong. Right, and we've
got some more rights we have to do.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
But this is so systemically and structurally. Do you think
America is racist? Not the people, not everybody in America.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
I don't think America is racist I think we have
racism in America, and I think and I think we
have cultural issues. But let me explain where I am. So,
first of all, I grew up and you might have.
I don't know if Berkeley County was like this in
a town of twenty five hundred two stoplights. We were
the only Indian family in that small southern town. We

(33:03):
weren't white enough to be white. We weren't black enough
to be black. They didn't know who we were, what
we were, or why we were there in that rural town.
We didn't know what we didn't have, and so people
just survived. I now have a education foundation in South
Carolina where we do after school programs in all rural
challenged areas, because you've got to give extra support to

(33:25):
those areas that don't have But when I came into
South Carolina's governor, we had thousands of people on welfare.
A lot of that was generational, from one generation to
the next. They just lived on welfare. It's all they knew.
I wanted to change that. So what I did is
I took the people on welfare and I matched them
up with businesses, and I told the businesses, if you
will take this person and train them. I will pay

(33:47):
for them for X number of weeks and then you
decide if you want to hire them. We moved thirty
five thousand people from welfare to work. We had family
parties because for the first time kids saw their parents
working that those people didn't want a job, they didn't
know where to get the training. You got to do
the extra stuff to lift them up. Then I went
into the prison systems. I wanted to know how people

(34:10):
got in, what happened when they were there, and how
they got out. And I completely and I went into
those prisons and talked to the inmates and I completely
reformed the system to where we gave them financial planning,
family planning, computer skills, but we put equipment behind the
fence and we taught them a skill. Now when someone
leaves the fence, they have a job to go to

(34:31):
the next day. We have the lowest forcidivism rate in
the country. The goal is not what the circumstances are.
How do you pull people out of those circumstances and
lift them up.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
Well, you can't hear what you don't reveal, So you
have to acknowledge the you know the history of the.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
Way you have to acknowledge that these things are happening,
and how are you going to fix it?

Speaker 1 (34:49):
Absolutely no, I wont to do.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
Why can't politicians Democrat and Republican because we've all heard
We've heard you say America has never been a racist country.
We've heard the Vice president say that before. We've heard
Oggim clib and say that before, We've heard Tim Scott.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Say that before.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Why can't Democratic and Republicans just be honest and tell people, Hey,
we can't have honest conversations about racism in this country
because it's not a good electoral strategy.

Speaker 4 (35:10):
I mean, that's not why.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
That's why everybody does.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
I have talked about Look, I have talked about racism
as it affected me and how we need to get
past it. I mean, keep it.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
You can't talk about it and say America's never been
You can't say America's never been a racist coutry, but
then talk about the racism you experienced.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
There is racism in our country. I don't think that
our country was founded to be racist. I don't. I
think that it was meant to be this amazing experiment
to see if we could have freedom and democracy in
a way that all men are created equal, but are
not there yet.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
If you didn't look at all men as equal from
the beginning, then the ideology is flawed.

Speaker 4 (35:50):
But why do you want kids to hear that they
live in a racist country? Why can't you tell kids, look,
we're not perfect and we have some more things to fix.
I just I don't want any child to think like that.
I don't want any child to believe that their disadvantage
from the second they're born. I didn't want to feel that.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
I don't think it's a disadvantage. I think if you
tell somebody so, I think if you.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Tell somebody it's colde outside, you just that just makes
them put on a colde.

Speaker 4 (36:15):
No, it makes them, it makes them know what it's
going to feel like before they even get outside. I
don't want kids to feel that. I want them to
get outside with confidence and strength and know that they
can beat anything. We have to do that.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
I think I got to know the truth too, you know,
I don't think they have the truth.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
You know, like I have two black sons, and they
have to understand what they're facing when they go out
to this. Well, it's not going to be the same
as let's say my neighbor or a classmate. It's going
to be the same and the same thing with the same.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
Thing with you.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
If you and the let's say your brothers wore the
same thing that your dad wore, they weren't going to
have the same lifestyle and they were going to be
looked at differently than your other classmates.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
Well, it's the truth.

Speaker 4 (36:50):
There was a We Miss Bamberg pageant that everybody would
put their children in. It was the big thing in Bamberg.
She always put your kits in. So my mom decided
to put me and my sister in this pageant. And
I was disqualified because they had a black queen and
they had a white queen. And they said they didn't

(37:10):
know where to put me because if I was in
the black category, the blacks to be mad. If I
was in the white category, the whites to be mad.
So they gave me a beach ball and sent me
all my way. Beef didn't Yeah, I know, that's all
I got. Right only after my mom said, will you
at least let her sing her song? You're never gonna
believe it. My song was this land is your land,
this land is my land. I mean, it doesn't get
any worse than that. Listen, did my parents sit down

(37:33):
and say to us what happened here was wrong? Yes?
But did they say this is the way the country is. No,
my mom said, you get up, you show that this
is We're going to make it better tomorrow. I just
it's my mentality that I want everybody to know. We
all have a job to do, and that's to fix

(37:54):
this country, and we never stop doing it. We have racism,
and it's terrible. I've felt y'all felt it. A lot
of people have felt it. But are we not going
to fight every day to make sure that we stomp
it out wherever we see it? Absolutely? But I don't
want kids being raised to think that they're never going
to get past it. I want them to think that

(38:16):
they can actually be the ones that help us get
pasted it.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
But they have to know what it is.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
You can't take it out of you can't take it
out of classrooms, you can't take it out of curriculum.
You can't act like it doesn't exist.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
I have to heal it. You have to reveal it.
Noider to here, But.

Speaker 4 (38:29):
Didn't we learn it in South Carolina? We learned about it.
We learned about it in history classes. You should always
talk about it in history classes. You don't know how
to keep bad things from happening if you don't look
at the past and say, okay, how do we go
for Those are the lessons that we have to learn.
I think it's fine to talk about it. I have
no issues with that, but don't don't judge people who

(38:50):
are trying to do right now and don't live in
the past. Let's look forward and say what do we
want to look like?

Speaker 3 (38:56):
So why did you take the Confederate flag now? Was
because it was a symbolism of racism or hate?

Speaker 1 (39:03):
Like why they said? You said it was two sides.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
And it wasn't for me to judge. But you couldn't
look at that killer draped in that Confederate flag and
not know that that was it. Really is what I
told the call, I don't want any child to ride
by that and think of those nine people that died,
and like, we had to do that that I had to.
And the thing is they had tried for years to

(39:26):
get it down. It was put up. It was put
up by a Democrat governor who promised to just have
it up for a year and take it down, and
he never took it down. So this is not where
you blame people. This is about saying, let's right or wrong.
And That's what I've always tried to do. If I
lived my life blaming you know, what Trump calls me today,

(39:47):
or what somebody said about me yesterday or whatever, I'd
spend all that energy on them instead of spending the
energy on saying I'm going to do better.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
You think Trump mocking your birth name was racist?

Speaker 4 (39:58):
I mean, I think we can let other people decide that.
I think you know, you look at it and it's
kind of like the Tim Scott you sleep with yourself.
I mean, we'll let Donald Trump sleep with that all
they want.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Oh, he don't care. He sleeps very good at it.

Speaker 4 (40:09):
And then that's why we need a new president.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
What's your thoughts on immigration?

Speaker 4 (40:13):
So, first of all, we got to secure the border.
I mean, America is acting like it's September tenth, and
we better remember what September twelfth felt like. It only
takes one person, and I have been to the border
and it's horrific what's happening for both for the people
that are coming and for the people that have to
live with it. So first, secure the border. We passed
the toughest i legal immigration law in the country when

(40:34):
I was governor, and I think the way we fix
it is you say we're going to have a national
everify program. Every business has to prove that the people
they hire in this country legally. We've got a defund
sanctuary cities once and for all. If they know there's
a safe haven, they're going to keep coming. You got
to put twenty five thousand Border patrol and ICE agents
on the ground and let them do their job. They're

(40:56):
not letting them do it. Now. We have to go
back to the remain in Mexico policy so that no
one steps foot on US soil and instead of catching release,
you got to go to catch and deport. But you
also have to do legal immigration reform. It should not
take someone ten years to become a citizen. I mean
right now, we've got to focus on what we need
to do to get all of that slowness and bureaucracy

(41:16):
out and allow it to be based on merit. What
makes our country better start when you do it on merit,
Then all of a sudden, you're helping the economy, you're
helping the country, You're doing all of those things, but
they got to do both. And it's inexcusable that they
continue to push this can down the road and wait
for something bad to happen instead of just securing that

(41:38):
border right now.

Speaker 3 (41:39):
It's terrible, But you know, Republicans are kind of politicizing
it right now, right because there's a deal on the table.
I don't know if it's considered a good deal or not.
But do you think Republicans should take Joe Biden's deal
or should they listen to Donald Trump was telling them no,
it don't take it because he just wants the credit
for it if he wins.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
I mean, I think it is a mistake for Trump
to say I don't want anything because it'll make it
harder for me an election. Something needs to be done today,
Like to me, Republicans and Democrats, they shouldn't leave DC
until they fix this, and Biden should stay there and
make sure they do it that. I don't know the
full details of the deal. The only thing I do
know is it doesn't have the remain in Mexico policy,

(42:17):
which is very important. People need to stay in Mexico.
They shouldn't come here. They're not vetting anybody, and you
shouldn't allow anybody to come across that. We don't know
who they are, what they are, all of that. So
if we're going to do it, we all know Congress.
Once Congress passes something, they walk away and say, oh,
we did that already, do it right, do it right?
But should they wait till the election to do it? No,

(42:39):
you get it done now. We can't wait another day.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Why not use that against Trump?

Speaker 3 (42:42):
Like, why not tell the American people, Hey, the border
deal could be done right now with Trump is impeding
on that progress.

Speaker 4 (42:49):
I mean, look, the media is not talking about it.
I have said that it is not a good thing
to say you're going to wait until the election to
get it done. Americans can't wait until the election. I've
called it out. I'm happy to call out. But I
also think it should be a good deal. It needs
to be a strong deal. If we're going to do this,
it needs to keep Americans safe.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Wouldn't that make Trump the shadow president? The fact that
he can just say on true.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
Social hey man, I don't think y'all should do the
deal in Republicans are actually listening to them.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
I mean, yesterday he said that the reason the stock
market was good was because of him, because people now
think he's going to win. I mean, Americans aren't stupid,
they're not. But what we do need to do is
see reality for what it is. It's I don't have
personal issues with him, that's just not it. But do
we really want to keep going in this direction? Do

(43:35):
we really want all this chaos? Because no one feels safe,
no one feels like America's moving. Our enemies don't know
what happened to us and are taking advantage of it.
And we've got to start looking in the mirror and
saying we can either be part of the solution or not.
That's why we're trying to get everybody out to vote
in a primary. You've got options, You've got options. A

(43:56):
lot of people vote in a general election, but they
don't vote in a primary. In general election, you're given
a choice. In a primary, you make the choice. That's
why we need to have people voting in South Carolina.

Speaker 1 (44:08):
I got a few more questions because you' give us
a lot of time. Thank you.

Speaker 3 (44:11):
Would you use force against Texas if they tried to
secede over the board issue? Because I remember in twenty
ten you said you U has states should have the
right to secede.

Speaker 1 (44:18):
Do you still believe that.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
I believe in states rights. I believe that everything should
be as close to the people to decide. We know
that's not going to happen. That's not the issue, but
I do think, like right now, it's a good issue
on state's rights. Biden won't secure the border. If Governor
Abbott goes and puts that fencing up there to keep
people out. He has to protect Texans. When I was governor,

(44:41):
I had to protect South Carolina, and you do whatever
it takes to protect your people and keep them safe.
If Biden's saying no, cut that fence, I mean, a
state has the ability to do these things because states
rights do matter, and I think that states need to
be able to do that.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
Would you use force against Texas if they ever try
to succeed?

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Use force against them? No, we don't ever use force
against our own Americans.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Okay, I got it. I don't mean like military or
anything like that. I'm just talking about, like, would you
be strong against them doing that?

Speaker 4 (45:11):
I mean, I think you know, states are going to
make decisions, but let's talk about what's reality. Texas isn't
going to succeed and succeed. I mean, that's not something
that they're going to do.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
So why did you say you believe in that in
two ten?

Speaker 4 (45:21):
What was the context of it.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
I think you said you believe that states have the
right to secede. That's what you said. You believe the
states of the United States have the right to seceed community.

Speaker 4 (45:31):
I think that they do. I mean the Constitution says that.
I think states have the right to make the decisions
that their people want to make. I mean they do.
In South Carolina, we said we didn't want Syrian refugees.
We said we didn't want Guantana Mobay prisoners. We said
those things. South. I do think that laws should be
made as close to the people as possible because it
empowers the people. If Texas decides they want to do that,

(45:54):
they can do that. But I don't think that if
that whole state says we don't want to be part
of America anymore, I mean, that's their decision to make.
But I don't think government needs to tell people how
to live, how to do anything. I mean, I think
that we need to let freedom live and.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
Uh, you know, I want to go back to the flag.
Do you still think Confederate Heritage Month should be celebrated.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
You said that in twenty ten.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
What so I right after the flag came down, a
lot of people wanted to remove monuments and street signs.
And you know, South Carolina is draped in history. And
what I said then and what I still say now
is taking down a monument. Taking down something doesn't change

(46:38):
the situation. Add to it. So instead of taking down
a monument, they're putting up a memorial for Mother Emmanuel.
There's an African American museum now right there in Charleston.
Add to the history. Don't erase history, because that's what
teaches us lessons. If the South Carolina General Assembly wants
to continue having a Confederate whatever it is they have,

(47:00):
they vote on that, they decide whether to do that.
That's up to them. I did my part. My part
was saying we're not going to have a living, breathing
symbol stand in front of our state house anymore and
define us, and brought that down. We all have choices
to make the legislature if they choose to do that,
they can choose to do that. I mean, I remember,

(47:23):
right when I asked for the flag to come down,
there was one day, we had the Black Panthers on
one side of the State House and we had the
KKK on the other side. That each of them that
was their choice. I made sure there was enough security
that no one got hurt. Freedom does matter. I will

(47:46):
always fight for people's freedom. I will never sit there
and say what you can say and not say. I'll
never tell you how to live or not live. I'll
never control your life and say government's going to tell
you to do this. I strongly believe that freedom that
people need to live and say and do what they
want to do. I may not agree with it, but
I will always fight for your freedom.

Speaker 1 (48:07):
And you know in two thousands and you also said
about the Civil War.

Speaker 3 (48:09):
You said it had an interview too, that it was
about tradition versus change. And then they asked you about
it earlier this year and you said it wasn't about slavery.
But then you came back and said it was. Why
initially didn't you just say, hey, it was about slavery.

Speaker 4 (48:23):
So the context of that is I've done over one
hundred and sixty town halls, answering every question, shaking every hand.
We don't screen anything all that. When he asked that question.
I made the mistake of thinking he was he was
trying to ask something else. I could tell that he
was not a fan. Slavery should have been the first

(48:45):
thing that came out of my mouth. I mean, growing
up in South Carolina, we all knew that the Civil
War was about slavery. That almost seemed too easy. I
thought he was asking a harder question, and that's why
I didn't say it. It was wrong. I should have
said it. I agree, you know that, But it was
just me overthinking that question.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
I feel stupid that night, Is you like, oh yeah.

Speaker 4 (49:03):
I mean it was one of those things like because
it was so like slavery's a given, So I was
mad that it was a given. But I was too
busy judging his intentions. Then I was just answering the question.
And it was a mistake.

Speaker 3 (49:17):
You know, in your memoir in twenty twelve, you said
that you believe, you believe that letting law makers hide
the sources of their income is wrong. But you've done
the same thing, So why not mention that.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
In your memoir?

Speaker 4 (49:29):
When did I have my sources of income?

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Well?

Speaker 3 (49:31):
I read an ny Times article this week and it
said they were questioning you about your ethics because of
a contract you had with Wili Smith that you didn't disclose.

Speaker 4 (49:38):
All of them. Not only was it disco First of all,
they brought up this issue and said, why didn't you
tell we didn't have disclosure of income? But what I
did do is anything that was a conflict of interest.
I recused myself from voting because they tried to make
this a thing. That is the reason I said we
should disclose everything. So I tried to. Any time you

(49:59):
see a wrong, transparency heals all things, and so I
open it up. It's why I required legislators to start
showing their votes on the record. It's why I said
we should all have to disclose our income. It's why
I've always been very transparent. Anything that people want to see,
I think you should be able to see it if
you're in public office. And so again, you find wrongs

(50:19):
and you make them right. It wasn't that I was
hiding my income. South Carolina didn't require it, but when
questions came up, I thought we should require it. Taxpayers
should know where people get paid. That's the legislature hated
me for it, but it was true. We all should
have to show taxpayers whatever it is they need to
know to feel comfortable about.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
What we're doing in a post Trump era.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
When I read that article, I honestly was like, who cares?

Speaker 1 (50:44):
That's what that was my mind.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
So this New York Times, whatever you're doing about, do.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
You ever think about that?

Speaker 3 (50:48):
Do you ever be like, like, look what's going on
over here?

Speaker 1 (50:51):
And this is what they're worried about? With me?

Speaker 4 (50:53):
No, it's politics. I mean, it doesn't bother me. I mean,
I'm happy to answer any questions about anything that comes up.
What do I wish they would talk more about the
issues facing American families? Yes, Instead they try and throw
shade to make people don't like her because of this,
don't like her because of that. But that's why I'm
incredibly open about everything. I mean, there's nothing you can

(51:14):
ask me that I'm not going to go and give
an answer for because I think that you got to
put yourself out there. So, yeah, do we have to
fix things when they write stuff like that, I mean,
instead of saying she wouldn't disclose her income, why don't
you say because it was an issue? That's why I
passed the law so that that never happened again. You know,
I've always tried to make things right when there's been
a wrong.

Speaker 3 (51:34):
You have a lot of big Democratic donors, you know,
who have donated to anti Trump candidates and causes, and
they donated to deal campaign.

Speaker 1 (51:40):
Why do you think Why do you think that is?

Speaker 4 (51:44):
I don't go after any certain kind of donor. We
need donors, we need voters. I put myself out there,
and so whoever contributes, I don't say are you a
Republican or are you a Democrat? Are you an independent?
I don't ask that. If they support what we're doing,
we appreciate the same with voters. I don't just go
to Maga Republicans. I don't just go to Republicans. I'm

(52:06):
talking to Republicans, I'm talking to independence, I'm talking to Democrats.
I'm talking to anybody that will listen. Because this is
a story about addition, you should want I've said this
to the Republican Party a million times. Republicans have lost
the last seven out of eight popular votes for president.
That's nothing to be proud of. We should want to
win the majority of Americans. That's what I'm trying to do,

(52:28):
is I want everybody. So if people decide to donate
to us. I appreciate it. We'll take it. But at
the end of the day, I'm focused on lifting up everybody.
That's where I think our country finally needs to go.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
How the ward just looking because I saw something last night.
It doesn't look like you have digital ads running on Facebook,
which I thought was s grenge, like, I want to
see some of your digital ads or at least the
ones your campaign was running, and it says they were off.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
No, we have so we are on TV. We've got digital,
we've got door knockers, we've got phone callers, we have
where I mean, we've got lots of comer marcis on TV.
The money I'm gonna account it. So when the rest
of the Fellows were spending all their money on things
that didn't matter, mine has always gone straight to TV
where we can touch as many voters as we can.
So we have enough to be strong in South Carolina.

(53:14):
We're now raising for when Trump hits me, to be
able to defend ourselves. That's the next focus. But look,
we're gonna take it from everybody, and I'll tell you,
I mean, everything from our money standpoint is good. But
after Trump went on that temper tantrum. We raised a
million dollars after he said anybody that supports her, you know,
it can't be part of MAGA. We raised another one

(53:36):
point six million. After he went and tried to say
the Republican Party should name him the nominee. We raised
another one point four million, all in small dollars from
around the country. We have over two hundred and twenty
five thousand donors from across the country. Ninety five percent
of those donations are two hundred dollars or less. Those
are the people I'm fighting for. Is making sure we
fight for every normal, regular American out there, not the

(54:00):
political class.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Two more questions.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
How has Trump changed politics for the good and of bad.

Speaker 4 (54:07):
He's made it chaotic, He's made it self absorbed. He's
made people dislike and judge each other. He's left that
a president should have moral clarity and know the difference
between right or wrong. And he's just toxic. I mean,

(54:33):
he you know, I think a lot of the things
he broke needed to be broken, but he doesn't know
how to fix things again. And it's not okay to
just break. You've got to fix it and make it better.
And he hasn't done that.

Speaker 3 (54:46):
What do you think he's done good for the culture politics?
And I'm not talking about legislation. I'm talking about the
example I use is I feel like Trump has killed
the language of politics.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
If politicians wanted.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
To, they could really be on their bulwarth stuff and
really just tell the truth, speaking like it is, and
people wouldn't care. And when you said you talk about
the moral aspect of it.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
I never expected politicians to be perfect, because I know
they're not. So he's kind of like broken that mold
the way y'all don't have to be.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
And moral clarity, though, isn't about like being a moral person.
That's moral clarity is just knowing the difference between right
and wrong, knowing the difference of you know, should you
call a group of people a name or not, should
you disqualified? That's the moral clarity I'm talking about. What
I think he did right was one, he broke some

(55:33):
things that needed to be broken. I think those were important.
Breaking the bureaucracy and getting things to move in a
way that people started talking about them again, I think
was important. I think the other thing that he did
was he really tapped into a group that felt unheard
and unseen and We should always focus on how you

(55:55):
can and the unheard unseen are people like where I
grew up in Bamberg, South, care of those people who
work hard every day. They don't have a lot of
time for politics, but they take care of their family.
But they felt unheard and unseen. And he tapped into that,
and I think that that was something that was good.
I think that, you know, we should always try and
tap into those people that you may not see every day,

(56:15):
or you may not hear, or they may not donate.
You still got to focus on them too.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
Last question, is all is worth it?

Speaker 4 (56:21):
Yes, because we have a country to save. We have
a country to save, and I am not going to
stop until we do this. I know in my soul
I'm supposed to be doing this. I know it because
I one don't want my kids to live like this.
I don't want anybody's kids to live like this. This
is not normal. There's nothing about it that's normal. It's

(56:41):
not normal to have two eighty year olds running. It's
not normal to have this chaos around us. It's not
normal for us to have wars all over the world
and you're sitting there talking about court cases and calling
people names. That's not normal.

Speaker 3 (56:55):
You contributed to a lot of it, though, hell being
a part of administration.

Speaker 4 (57:01):
No, When I was part of his administration, I told
countries what America was for and what America was against.
I didn't care if they didn't like me, but I
wanted them to respect America. We brought respect to the
United Nations again from America. Countries trusted US and respected
us again. I'm very proud of what I did. I
didn't work in DC. I never wanted to be. I
went there, I had my national security meetings, and I left.

(57:23):
I didn't get into the drama. I didn't get into
any of the politics there. I didn't go to the parties.
I stayed here in New York and I did my
job and only went to meetings when I had to.
I kept my head down and focused on what my
job was. I've always done that.

Speaker 3 (57:36):
The Republicans look at Trump as Frankenstein, and y'all had
doctor Frankenstein.

Speaker 1 (57:39):
So now y'all got to get rid of I.

Speaker 4 (57:41):
Think there's a lot of Republicans that still like Trump right.
They like what he did. They think he didn't get
a moment's piece. They didn't think he got announce of credit.
But I also think they need to understand that you
don't have to leave him, you don't have to hate him,
but you do have to say it's time to move forward.
Biden and Trump like we're it's time to move forward

(58:03):
from these older politicians and let's do something that's good
for America again.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
All right, Nikki Haley, how did you donate to your campaign?

Speaker 4 (58:12):
Go to Nicki Haley dot com. If you're in South Carolina.
We could do early voting February twelfth, the primaries on
February twenty fourth, show up with your ID, and let's
get it done.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
Thank you for the conversation.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
Thank you, this was fun.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
It's Nicki Haley. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning. Wake
that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club