- President Joe Biden is trying to win over a former supporter of Nikki Haley.
- Haley endorsed Trump but urged the former president to appeal to millions of voters.
- Haley, a self-described centrist Republican, said she could never support Donald Trump again.
This essay is based on a conversation with Roger, who is part of the Haley Voter Working Group, a group made up of former primary supporters of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley who are supporting or considering supporting President Joe Biden in the general election. He is listed by name only due to the sensitivity of his ongoing work on defense policy. We also include a statement from Trump at the end of the article.
We’ve spoken to voters, government officials and people directly involved in politics this election cycle to get first-hand insight into the importance of this election. We fact-check what they say, vet sources, and edit responses for length and clarity.
I voted twice for former President Donald Trump, and it is now clear that his actions are one of the greatest threats to the Constitution we have ever seen. But without a few words in the 14th Amendment, he would not even be eligible to be a candidate.
We are watching it in real time. I don’t want to be a part of it. We are not a dictatorship. I don’t know if I could vote for Joe Biden. And certainly his age is a legitimate concern. The passage of time is invincible. But if I had to choose between a dictator and someone his age, I wouldn’t choose the dictator. No, thank you.
Trump began to lose my support when he started his shenanigans after he lost the 2020 election, and all the bizarre events leading up to January 6th. And without a great man, Vice President Mike Pence, we would have found ourselves at a constitutional crossroads.
The ex-president will say anything and say it with a straight face. He reminds me of PT Barnum. A moron born every minute. All he has to do is do his research. He has done himself a lot of damage. He has never accepted responsibility for the mess he got himself into.
Trump is a convicted felon, but I thought the New York case was by far the weakest evidence against him. I’ll be honest, as someone who handled classified documents in the military, I looked at the list of items found in the pool house and near the bathroom and thought, oh my God, Trump is in big trouble. There’s no excuse. Trump had multiple opportunities to return those documents with grace.
Trump’s treatment of Nikki Haley made things even worse.
I don’t like the way Trump treated Nikki Haley, the name calling and what he said about her deployed husband. Oh my goodness, he’ll never get the upper hand. She’s one of the smartest people who understands all these issues. But she can’t be left wing. MAGA hates her.
I was shocked when she endorsed him. It made me think a little bit. I watched the video many times. She has to survive politically going forward. She is a Republican at heart. In the big picture, she has never pretended to be anything else. And she said it was her personal choice. She made the proviso that she encouraged Biden to reach out to voters. In retrospect, he had all the time to reach out to Haley’s 4+ million supporters. He never did that. The Biden campaign actually did that.
I never liked Trump’s tone or behavior, but I voted for him because I thought he was right about the border. His fiscal policies were mostly sound. The border is a real problem. Many believe this problem started in January 2021 when President Biden took office, because he reversed course and reversed all of Trump’s executive orders and policies. You have to understand the bigger picture here. The impact of these illegal immigrant influxes is what created the borders in New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Atlanta. Borders are everywhere because we’re not vetting these people.
I’m an old-school Reagan supporter, and Nikki Haley is a lifelong Republican. She understands the importance of Ukraine. She understands the importance of how we conduct foreign policy. And when you think about it, there are a lot of parallels with what the current administration is trying to do. If Trump wins, it will be a disaster for Ukraine. 46 Republicans voted against funding NATO. This scares me. It’s as if no one is paying attention to what really matters. We want democracy, freedom, and liberty to thrive. Because those are true American values. We don’t want to send American troops to fight there.
Serving in the military had a huge impact on my life.
I met my wife during my first tour of duty in Korea. We’ve been married for 35 years. The military is a microcosm of our society as a whole. I grew up in rural South Carolina and I learned a lot about people by working with them. It takes you away from the mystical mindset. On one of my tours, I went to the DMZ, where you come face to face with North Korea. You see them living in the past. They come out in old wool Soviet uniforms. It’s a tough place. You get some sense of the dangers of the world.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, that bothered me. You look at the map and you see what’s dangerous. Nothing good can come from a Russian invasion. That got me involved and mixed my opinions and perspectives.
In response to Rodger’s comments, Trump spokesman Steven Chang sent Business Insider the following statement: “President Trump swept the primary in record-breaking fashion and in a close race. Voters know that President Trump is the only person who will defeat Joe Biden and reclaim the White House. A motion to dismiss the case was filed earlier this week after it emerged that investigators in the case likely engaged in evidence tampering and mishandling of documents. If Joe Biden were re-elected, it would be a disaster for America. President Trump will put America First rather than become embroiled in more wars and conflicts as Biden did.” (Editor’s note: Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team is describing the order of documents removed from Mar-a-Lago during the investigation into classified documents. It may have shifted It dates back to when FBI agents first seized the materials.
