BONNIE: Hi. My name is Bonnie (ph), and I'm here with my daughter...
MARA: Mara (ph).
BONNIE: ...Who was named when I was listening to the NPR POLITICS PODCAST and heard Mara Liasson.
SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:
Aw.
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Aw.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Oh, so cool.
BONNIE: This podcast was recorded at...
MCCAMMON: 1:07 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, May 23, 2024.
BONNIE: Things may have changed by the time you hear it.
MARA: OK. Here's the show.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BIGTOP ORCHESTRA'S "TEETER BOARD: FOLIES BERGERE (MARCH AND TWO-STEP)")
LIASSON: Oh, future broadcaster, for sure.
MCCAMMON: A little Mara.
ORDOÑEZ: We love all Maras.
MCCAMMON: We do. Hey there. It's the NPR POLITICS PODCAST. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.
ORDOÑEZ: I'm Franco Ordoñez. I also cover the presidential campaign.
LIASSON: And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIKKI HALEY: As a voter, I put my priorities on a president who's going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account, who would secure the border, no more excuses, a president who would support capitalism and freedom, a president who understands we need less debt, not more debt. Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I've made that clear many, many times. But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump.
MCCAMMON: That, of course, is Nikki Haley, speaking to a Conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. The former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina governor and former GOP presidential hopeful says she is backing Donald Trump, at least in her capacity as a voter. So I want to start there. Haley dropped out of the Republican primary back in March, and she held off on endorsing Trump. She is technically stopping short, I guess, of a full endorsement here, although I'm not sure if that matters. The message is that she is behind Trump. So how much of a boost is this for him?
ORDOÑEZ: I mean, it's definitely a boost. I mean, how much I think is still to be determined. But the reality is Trump has had a lot of trouble with Haley voters. She has continued to draw anywhere from 20% of the vote in GOP primary contests, even months after she dropped out, as you said, in early March. In Arizona, Haley won 18% of the vote, 16% in Pennsylvania, double digits in Georgia, in Michigan. These are not insignificant numbers, and Trump needs some of these numbers in order to kind of close some of these margins because I'm talking about battleground states as well.
LIASSON: Yeah, there are polls that we saw all during the primaries that showed a certain number of Haley voters said they would never vote for Trump. Now, that's a hypothetical question. We assume that in reality, many of those people who said they wouldn't vote for him actually will. Some of them will stay home. Maybe some of them will vote for Biden. I agree with Franco. This - what I call semi-endorsement. It's not a real endorsement. It's Haley wanting to have it both ways, as she has wanted for her entire career. This is completely in character. It makes it maybe a little bit easier for some of her supporters to vote for him. But this was not about moving voters. What she said was all about her political future, 100%.
MCCAMMON: It's about Nikki Haley.
LIASSON: It's about Nikki Haley.
MCCAMMON: But as Franco was saying, the ghost of Haley has kind of lingered over this campaign. We've seen her doing surprisingly well in some of the states that have had primaries since she dropped out because she was still on the ballot in many cases. It seems like a lot of Republicans still aren't wanting to rally around Donald Trump. I guess what we're trying to get at here is, does this change that very much?
LIASSON: Maybe a tiny bit. Remember, she went from Donald Trump is unhinged and not qualified to be president period to he's not been perfect. This is kind of a case study in a very political politician. You know, she said some really, really tough things about him, even after it was clear that she wasn't going to get the nomination. He doesn't deserve a driver's license, let alone being president. Donald Trump is not willing to stand up for our allies. He sided with Vladimir Putin, I mean, on and on and on. This was very tough stuff, and she did it after she didn't need to do it anymore.
ORDOÑEZ: This kind of language that Mara is talking about really resonated with a segment of the GOP electorate. Now, some of those voters are never going to go back to Trump. They were never-Trumpers. But others, you know, may not go either because they were fed up with the party's direction after January 6 and the efforts to overturn the election. I do think or, I mean, I think polls reflect this as well, that most of them probably will go back to Trump. And Haley, you know, saying that she'll vote for Trump, you know, may also likely nudge some more, maybe, to kind of hold their nose and pull the lever for Trump. But I think there are still big questions because of these battleground states. The margins are so little that if enough stay home, and there's very clearly that some of these Haley voters would not vote for Trump and will never, if enough of them don't vote for Trump and just stay home, that could have a significant impact.
LIASSON: And don't forget a lot of these Haley voters were Democrats in the primaries that allowed them to vote in the Republican primary. There were states that made it easy to do that. So we don't even know exactly who's in this universe and if all of them are actually Republicans.
MCCAMMON: And there were some efforts, although I think they were pretty low key by some Democratic-backed groups, to encourage Democrats to do that. Not sure how much of a difference they made. You know, I want to go back quickly to something Mara was saying, which is about the way that Haley's tone has changed, developed, you could say maybe flip-flopped on Trump. I covered her campaign. I sort of watched her become increasingly pointed in her rebukes of Trump as she got closer and closer to a one-on-one race with him. And then right before the South Carolina primary, you probably both remember, this was a critical moment for her, her home state where she needed to make a strong showing. She gave this big speech where she said, I'm not dropping out.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HALEY: I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump's retribution. I'm not looking for anything from him.
MCCAMMON: So at that point, she was sort of doubling down on presenting a challenge to Trump - not so much right now.
LIASSON: No. And don't forget. She also said he's the most disliked politician in America, and we can't win a general election with him. I mean, these are - the ad makes itself. Somebody is going to compile these and put them out.
ORDOÑEZ: Yeah, I mean, but I think there's certainly a different political calculation that she was making then as she is making now. And she's thinking about her political future, the direction of the Republican Party. She's got a long career ahead of her in Republican politics. And she really doesn't have many other options, if you think about it. Those who oppose Trump - take Liz Cheney for a moment, you know, who was a rising star - you know, they just pushed out.
LIASSON: Yeah, and he looks like a winner now. He might have looked like a loser to her earlier, but he's leading in all the battleground states. And to me, Haley is emblematic of the real story of Donald Trump. And the real story of Donald Trump has been the Republican Party completely capitulating to him. Now, the base found him appealing sincerely, but there are many, many, many members of the Republican establishment who feel exactly as Nikki Haley did when she made all those negative comments about him but understand that their political futures depend on them being loyal to him.
MCCAMMON: And, Mara, you just mentioned those polls. Do you think that's why she's doing this now, why she chose this moment?
LIASSON: Well, I think she's had to think about this for a while, ever since it was clear she didn't have a path to the nomination. And she came up with this formula where she's going to vote for him, but she's not endorsing him, where he hasn't been perfect. But this is - you know, Haley did this when she was a member of the Trump administration. Sometimes she'd be really independent. She used those 300-and-something miles between New York and Washington to the best advantage I have ever seen.
ORDOÑEZ: (Laughter).
LIASSON: You know, one day, she'd be criticizing him or putting some distance. The next time, she was sitting in the Oval Office with him, getting a wonderful, warm and affectionate send-off. I don't know. If this, as a famous politician named Bill Clinton used to say, maintains her viability or not.
MCCAMMON: This is, I think, one of the things about politics that frustrates a lot of people, but it's also, arguably, exactly why Nikki Haley made it as far as she made it...
LIASSON: Sure. Sure.
MCCAMMON: ...And is still in the conversation.
LIASSON: And this is why people are cynical about politicians.
MCCAMMON: All right, we're going to take a quick break here. We'll have more in just a moment.
And we're back. Of course, this has implications for President Biden, too. He's really been trying to court these Republican-leaning voters who may have backed Nikki Haley in the primary. He's trying to woo them to his side. What does this mean for those efforts?
LIASSON: I think they continue. This might make it a little bit harder, but the initial response from the Biden campaign was, we still welcome Haley voters. And...
MCCAMMON: Right.
LIASSON: ...They're going to remind Haley voters of all the reasons they voted for Haley instead of Trump. As Franco said, these are very tight elections. They're going to be won on the margins, and I think the Biden campaign will still be going after them. And don't forget, a lot of the Haley voters are white, college-educated suburbanites, and that has become a really important part of the Democratic coalition as other parts of the coalition have weakened, like young voters and African American and Hispanic voters.
ORDOÑEZ: Just adding to what Mara is saying, I mean, when the Biden campaign put out a statement, you know, they're saying nothing has changed, and they're also using some of Haley's own words, you know, to make the argument that her voters should come over to the Biden campaign. When Haley said that she was going to vote for Trump, she said that she was going to back a leader who stands up for U.S. allies against foreign adversaries. I mean, Donald Trump clearly is kind of questionable on that.
We all remember and we've all reported on the difficult relations he's had with U.S. allies in the West and the relationships he's built with adversaries, whether it's Russian president, Vladimir Putin, whether it's Kim Jong Un of North Korea or whether it's Viktor Orban of Hungary. You know, so I think Biden is going to continue - as Mara is saying, just continuing to go after that segment of the Haley voters. That has raised questions about Trump's policy, particularly on foreign policy as well as democracy.
LIASSON: Yeah. And Haley has been very, very harsh on that. She said anybody that can't call out a dictator is a problem.
ORDOÑEZ: Sarah, can I ask you - I mean, you've spent a lot of time with Haley voters. I mean, what is your sense? How will the voters see this?
MCCAMMON: Yeah, it's a really interesting question, and I think it's one that bears reporting out further. But based on my time on the campaign trail, mostly in South Carolina, New Hampshire and Iowa, I met a lot of Haley voters, you know, some who were independents, who were sort of Haley curious. Others - I would say the typical Haley voter was a Republican or a Republican-leaning person who maybe had voted for Trump in the past but was just tired of all of it and wanted something new, wanted the party to not be so aligned with Trumpism.
But when you'd ask them, what'll you do if Trump is the Republican nominee? You would hear so often, I just don't know. I just don't know. Maybe I'll write in Nikki Haley. Maybe I'll vote third party. I didn't hear a lot of people say they'd vote for Biden, though. I have to tell you that. Now, this is my anecdotal experience, but that's what I heard from Haley voters, by and large.
LIASSON: Anytime a potential supporter of your opponent stays home, it's a good day for you. So staying home is not the best thing for Joe Biden, but it's better than those people voting for Trump.
MCCAMMON: That's true. I want to go back to something that Mara said a moment ago, that we touched on a moment ago, which is the challenge that Biden is facing with parts of his own coalition. You know, how bad is this news for him? You know, if he lost parts of sort of the left, maybe he was going to go to the center and get some of these Haley voters. Is that still a viable strategy?
LIASSON: Sure. It's like, how much? It's unclear, but he needs the demographic that Haley's voters represented - suburban, college-educated voters - and maybe he can get some of them. The biggest divide in American voting behavior right now is education. College-educated voters tend to vote Democratic, and non-college-educated voters of all races and ethnicities are moving to Republicans.
ORDOÑEZ: I think they expected this to eventually happen. Most of the Democratic and Republican strategists I talked to said this was going to be an eventual happening, and I don't think it changes their approach of trying to carve off as many of those voters as they can.
MCCAMMON: So Haley has come around to Trump. As you said, Franco, not a huge surprise - certainly not, as Mara has indicated, in this Republican Party. But what role do we think that Haley is going to play going forward, you know, the rest of this campaign?
LIASSON: Well, the big question, of course, is, would Donald Trump reverse himself and offer her the vice presidential spot? He said he doesn't want to. She certainly would take it. I've stuck to that prediction for months and months. But I don't know if that will happen. I think that Haley could get a job in the administration.
MCCAMMON: She has before.
LIASSON: She has before.
ORDOÑEZ: I'm not on the bandwagon of Mara's bandwagon about that she would accept the VP position. I'm not saying she won't. She would, maybe, but I think it would be a difficult question. We all know the VPs who Trump has picked - you know, the one VP. I guess there's only one example, but it's kind of a rocky road being Trump's VP. And as Mara was saying, we were talking about earlier, she's shown some independence. That said, I really don't think that Trump is going to pick her as VP.
LIASSON: No, he doesn't have to. He doesn't have to. He feels like he's leading. Republicans are extremely confident right now.
ORDOÑEZ: If you look at the list of VP potential candidates, there are others that kind of fit the role that Nikki Haley could play on the party, you know, the strong on foreign policy - look at Marco Rubio. Looking at kind of like crossing lines, look at Tim Scott. That said, it would help Trump to bring her aboard in some capacity.
MCCAMMON: You know, a few months ago, when I was covering her campaign and hearing her become increasingly sort of pointed in her criticism of Trump, I would have said no way that she would accept if she were offered. But I think I'm on Team Mara now because you know what? She's clearly an ambitious person with a long game in mind. And whether it's VP or some other position in the administration, Nikki Haley wants to have a career going forward. One thing I think this does, too, is it lets her speak at the convention - right? - which is often an important moment for up-and-coming members of the party. One last question before we go for both of you. Who needs these Nikki Haley voters more - Trump or Biden?
LIASSON: Right now, Biden 'cause he's behind.
ORDOÑEZ: I mean, I would argue that Trump needs them more. With these numbers that they've been seeing, the 20% in battleground states, Trump really needs to bring back more of those voters. I think there are big questions. You know, we've talked a lot about the coalition - Biden's coalition and the problems he has in his coalition. This is a clear example of the challenges that Trump has with his coalition.
MCCAMMON: OK, we're going to leave it here for today. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover the presidential campaign.
ORDOÑEZ: I'm Franco Ordoñez. I also cover the presidential campaign.
LIASSON: And I'm Mara Liasson, senior national political correspondent.
MCCAMMON: Thank you for listening to the NPR POLITICS PODCAST.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BIGTOP ORCHESTRA'S "TEETER BOARD: FOLIES BERGERE (MARCH AND TWO-STEP)")
Copyright © 2024 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.