Nikki Haley Gets 'You're Fired' From Trumpland

Or as they say in Yiddish, 'With one tuchus, you can't dance at two weddings.'

Nikki Haley has just come to the shocking realization that she is not Mitch McConnell.

It's an easy mistake to make, of course. All you have to do is take away Mitch's iron grip on the Senate GOP and life tenure in his dream job, stick him in a jewel-tone sheath dress, and he's a dead ringer for the former Trump official née South Carolina governor who dreams of being president in 2025.

Well, except that Mitch McConnell can laugh his ass off every time Trump vomits out a sub-literate ad hominem attack because he doesn't give a damn what some has-been without a Twitter account says about him. Unlike Nikki Haley, who can't get elected again without Trump's support.

And, whoooopsie! Seems like she may have lost it.

 Politico reports that "Haley reached out to former President Donald Trump on Wednesday to request a sit-down at Mar-a-Lago, but a source familiar tells Playbook that he turned her down. The two haven't spoken since the insurrection on Jan. 6, when Haley blasted Trump for inciting his supporters to storm the Capitol."

Apparently Trump's handlers were less than impressed with Tim Alberta's longform article about Haley in last week's Politico Magazine. (Let's not pretend that Trump sat down and read a 10,000 word thinkpiece, because LOLOL.)

"I'm watching the television the morning of the 6th and I see Don Junior get up there," she told Alberta a week later, "and then I hear the president get up there and go off on Pence. I literally was so triggered, I had to turn it off. I mean, Jon [Lerner] texted me something and I said, 'I can't. I can't watch it. I can't watch it,' because I felt the same thing. Somebody is going to hear that, and bad things will happen."

Odd choice of words , but go on ...

"When I tell you I'm angry, it's an understatement," Haley continued. "Mike has been nothing but loyal to that man. He's been nothing but a good friend of that man. … I am so disappointed in the fact that [despite] the loyalty and friendship he had with Mike Pence, that he would do that to him. Like, I'm disgusted by it."

She made similar comments the day after the riot to the RNC, telling attendees that "President Trump has not always chosen the right words. He was wrong with his words in Charlottesville, and I told him so at the time. He was badly wrong with his words yesterday. And it wasn't just his words. His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history."

In conversation with Alberta on January 12, Haley predicted that fanning the flames of insurrection would marginalize Trump with the Republican Party, and that he will "find himself further and further isolated."

"I think his business is suffering at this point. I think he's lost any sort of political viability he was going to have. I think he's lost his social media, which meant the world to him," she said. "I mean, I think he's lost the things that really could have kept him moving."

At the time, putting some distance between herself and her former boss probably seemed like a smart move. The country was still reeling from the violence in DC, and the  New York Times  reported that same day that Mitch McConnell might even back impeachment. But McConnell wasn't dumb enough to sit down with a reporter on the record and paint himself into a corner by committing to it, so he was able to backtrack when it was clear the party wouldn't back it. Yet another way to tell these two politicians apart!

And now Haley is stuck with her own words, alienating herself from the one person whose endorsement matters in the GOP primary. In addition to which, she's now staked out a preposterous position claiming that Trump's behavior in January of 2021 is totally different from the prior five years, when everything was terrific.

"I'm deeply disturbed by what's happened to him," she told Alberta, and apparently with a straight face, while simultaneously decrying the fact that Trump's most ardent supporters believe a load of bullshit conspiracy theories.

"I talked to this woman this morning, and she said, 'You know that the people that stormed the Capitol, there were a lot of Antifa. And what they did was if they took their MAGA hat and turned it backwards, that was their signal that they were Antifa," Haley moaned. "This was an educated, smart, longtime Republican woman. … We've got a lot of work to do. They've been lied to by everybody."

And who exactly is "everybody"? Couldn't possibly be Haley's "friend" Donald Trump, right?

Anyway, stunning political antenna on a candidate who hopes to get out of a GOP primary by calling the party base a pack of ignorant dupes. What's that old saying about "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth"?

No doubt Josh Hawley appreciates two of his 2024 rivals shooting themselves in the foot on the very same day. Maybe Mike Pompeo wants to tweet a video of himself kicking a puppy?

In summary and in conclusion, DEMS IN DISARRAY.

[ Politico / Politico ]

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