This week, Nikki
Haley,
perhaps the last best hope of once
mainstream Republicans
pledged her allegiance to the MAGA cause.
Veteran political analyst Susan Glasser
wrote about Haley's announcement
and a torrent of recent Trump
provocations in an article
in The New Yorker called
there is literally nothing
Trump can say
that will stop Republicans
from voting for him.
And Susan Glasser joins the program now.
Susan,
I think
perhaps those same words
could have been uttered for a while now.
Do you think that
it was ultimately Nikki Haley?
Despite everything she said about him
and the threat
that he posed to the United States
and the world, announcing
that she would, in fact support him?
That ultimately solidified that view?
It is a remarkable moment,
I think, in the Republican Party.
And it's it's hard right beyond
because we
become inured to it
after so many years of this phenomena
and of sort of
watching Republicans
flip flop on Donald Trump.
They come out like Nikki
Haley did, with very scathing
criticism of Trump.
It was just in February that she said
he was
literally unhinged and unfit for office.
And when she suspended her campaign
back then, she refused to endorse Trump.
Now, a couple of months have passed.
Donald Trump doesn't look like he's
a lot more hinged than he did
back in February.
There's been no noticeable effort,
to assuage the concerns of Haley
or the millions of Republican
primary voters who voted for Haley
and not for Donald Trump.
And yet,
nonetheless,
she announced
that she was going to vote
for Trump in November.
I think it really tells you a lot
about the Republican Party
today really being Donald Trump's
Republican Party.
Now, it wasn't a full
throated endorsement.
Let me quote what she said.
She said 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 again.
As you said,
quite a change from toxic
and unhinged is how she described
in just a few months ago.
Let's put together
let's play, for our viewers,
an actual video
of previous sound from not so long ago
of Nikki
Haley voicing her views
on Donald Trump at the time.
How much more losing
do we
have to do before we realize
maybe Donald Trump is the problem?
After New Hampshire,
when I got 43% of the vote,
he was unhinged.
The president should have moral clarity,
and he's just toxic.
There is no way that the American people
are going to vote
for a convicted criminal.
It is literally impossible
that we will win an election
if Donald Trump is the nominee.
So, Susan,
what do you think the calculus was
for someone like Nikki Haley,
who is still young,
who could have sat this out,
not necessarily
announcing her endorsement for Joe Biden?
She could have sat this out and said,
listen, let's reevaluate in four years.
And if Donald Trump had actually won
or lost regardless,
she could have said, I told you so.
And it would have been a refresh start
for the Republican Party.
Now, Donald Trump today
said that there may be room for her,
some space for her,
in his campaign or administration.
And there's talk
now of perhaps some Tom cotton,
being his running mate.
Tim Scott's name
has been thrown around, but
does it really even matter
if we're to stick to your premise
of the article that you wrote?
Is to
does anyone
bring anything
to Donald Trump at this point,
other than Donald Trump
promoting himself?
Donald Trump
would like you to believe
that only Donald Trump
is the one that matters.
And I think that is his view, actually,
pretty much of the election
and of a future administration,
if he were to serve in it.
you know,
what's remarkable
about Trump as a phenomenon
is that it
reveals what's in other people
as well as him.
And for many Republicans,
it's shown that
the principles
that they very loudly
proclaimed are not, in fact,
core principles for them.
Nikki Haley,
in saying that
she couldn't vote for Trump,
sorry that she would vote for Trump
because Biden was,
quote unquote, a catastrophe.
That's the template
that we've seen, followed by many,
other public critics of Trump
just in the last couple months.
You had Mitch McConnell,
the Senate Republican leader,
who literally blamed Donald Trump,
for unleashing the mob
at the Capitol on January 6th.
Nonetheless,
he said that he would be voting for
Donald Trump.
You had the same thing,
with the governor of New Hampshire,
also a very public critic
of Donald Trump,
you know, and on and on the list goes.
So I think
if you were surprised by this,
then on some level, right,
just as an observer,
you haven't really been paying attention.
But Nikki
Haley is a particularly interesting case
because she was made her announcement
about supporting Trump
in the middle of a speech
at the Hudson Institute,
in which she was once again
seeking to prove her
conservative, hawkish credentials
as a national security expert
in her party.
Well, she was scathing about
the sort of Trumpian America
first view of the world.
She believes that Trump,
and those who support him
on foreign policy are,
essentially too weak
not supporting American allies,
Ukraine and Israel.
and, you know, literally
she has publicly said
that you can't be
admiring of Vladimir Putin
and he the leader of the country.
And yet here she is
endorsing Trump,
who is a great public
admirer of Vladimir Putin.
Yeah.
Just yesterday,
then saying that it was only
he that could get Evan,
which the Wall Street
Journal reporter released,
because that is something
that only Vladimir Putin would do
if he were in office.
And for Donald Trump,
quite disturbing, to say the least.
Let me make a bit of a pivot,
but it does relate to
some of the policies
and some of the real life consequences
that we've seen
from the Trump administration.
What we could see from a second one,
and that is his control
over the Supreme Court.
We know that he appointed
three Supreme Court justices,
where we saw Roe v Wade
overturned in the last term.
one of those justices
was not appointed by Donald Trump,
but just added to the conservative bench.
And that is Justice Samuel Alito.
And I want to get your reaction
and thoughts
about this flag gate
controversy, that we've seen it clearly.
And he and his wife
have an affinity for flags.
there had been reports earlier
that there had been an upside down
flag of the United States. at their home.
And that was, again,
he blamed his wife for this actually,
both times now
blaming his wife or, flag,
that that seemed to support,
not only the MAGA movement,
but the stop the steal movement
following January 6th,
and then another flag that was seen,
at a vacation home in new Jersey
that, shows
an appeal to Heaven flag
and has a history
dating to the Revolutionary War
and come to symbolize,
Trump supporters as well.
What do you make of this blatant
sort of political endorsement,
even if it was his wife?
I mean,
the fact that this is a Supreme
Court justice who's deciding on issues,
in cases related directly to January
6th and others,
how should we interpret this?
Yeah, I think
first of all, it's terrific
reporting by Jodi
Kantor of The New York Times.
you know, and it's an important story
that recognizes what we can all sort of
see in the last few years,
which is the
the real politicization,
even much more explicit
politicization of the Supreme Court,
than we're used to.
And, in particular,
what you've seen is now A63,
not just a conservative majority,
but arguably a kind of, radical
shake things up, conservative majority.
Alito probably is the leader of that, now
majority faction in the Supreme Court.
you gotta wonder.
certainly they're not expert at PR,
not having had to do very much of it
given their lifetime, approved job.
But, you know, why?
Why give the appearance
of any potential conflict of interest,
generally speaking,
you know, the judicial code,
I should point out, points
to all of those
at lower levels in our system,
except for the Supreme Court,
in which it's
very clear that any displays of Partizan
affiliation or,
even fellow
thinking that
those are strongly frowned upon.
And yet he is unaccountable to that code.
Yeah.
And I think in addition to the low
approval ratings
that Americans have for Congress
and elected
official in general,
I mean, what's really alarming
that we're starting to see
and we've seen over the past few years
their approval rating
for the Supreme Court
justices
also continued to decline drastically.
Susan Glasser,
we'll have to leave it there.
thank you so much for joining us.
It's great to see you.