Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley attacked former President Donald Trump during an interview late this week over recent remarks that he made about Russia and over his this week’s bombshell ruling that he must pay more than $350 million in a civil business fraud case.
Haley, who is polling nearly 60 points behind Trump in the latest RealClearPolitics average, made the remarks during a Friday interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.”
Collins started by asking Haley if she blamed Russian President Vladimir Putin for the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny earlier this week.
“Absolutely. I mean, all you have to do is look at his track record. I mean, this is a man who’s known to kill his political opponents,” Haley said, later adding: “And honestly, that’s what was so disturbing about what Donald Trump said in his rally in Conway, South Carolina, a week ago, was that he said that he would side with Putin and not defend NATO allies if they weren’t pulling their weight.”
“That means Donald Trump is siding with a thug, who kills his political opponents,” she said. “He’s siding with someone, who has made no bones about wanting to destroy America. He’s siding with someone who arrests American journalists and holds them hostage. And he’s siding with a dictator instead of siding with our allies who stood with us at 9/11. It’s the problem.”
Collins later asked Haley about the ruling by a judge in New York on Friday that Trump must pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and is barred from running any business in the state for three years.
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“I mean, my biggest issue is, I don’t want the RNC to become his legal defense fund. I don’t want the RNC to become his piggy bank for his personal court cases,” Haley said. “We’ve already seen him spend $50 million worth of campaign contributions towards his personal court cases. Now, we see him trying to get control of the RNC so that he can continue not to have to pay his own legal fees.”
“The problem is that doesn’t help us win any seats in the House, in the Senate or anything else, if the RNC is all focused on his legal fees. The RNC’s practically broke now as it is. And so, this is a bigger issue for the Republican Party,” she continued. “But what I am most concerned about is now he’s gone and taken someone, from North Carolina. He’s made the co-chair, his daughter-in-law. He’s made his campaign manager, the Director of Operations. He’s trying to control the RNC after the fact that he tried to get me out of the race so that he could be the presumptive nominee.”
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