(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Haley says the Republican Party is becoming Trump’s ‘playpen’ – Daily Montanan [1] ['Andrew Roth', 'More From Author', '- February'] Date: 2024-02-27 Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said the GOP is becoming former President Donald Trump’s playpen during a speech in Grand Rapids on Monday. Ronna McDaniel, who has led the Republican National Committee since 2017 after heading the Michigan GOP during Trump’s 2016 victory, confirmed Monday that she is stepping down in March. Trump has endorsed North Carolina GOP chairman to be the next chair of the RNC, along with his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as RNC co-chair. “Donald Trump is now turning the Republican Party into his own playpen,” said Haley, a former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador under Trump. “Look at what’s happening at the RNC. The idea that they would be choosing a chair and a director before a primary is over is a massive control move by Donald Trump.” That has led to division in the Michigan GOP and among Republicans nationwide, Haley said. “I was here campaigning in 2012 for people running for office. Michigan was a bright light. They were winning races up and down the ticket, they had passed a Right to Work law, everything was great,” Haley said, referring to the GOP former Gov. Rick Snyder era when Republicans controlled the Legislature. “Once Donald Trump came in 2016, they’ve now lost the governor’s mansion, they’ve lost the state House, they’ve lost the state Senate, the party is completely divided.” That division would make Trump a liability for the party in November, Haley said. “We are seeing all over the country that the Republican Party is fully divided and you now have factions,” Haley said. “If you have a candidate that can’t win 40% of the vote in the early states, if you have a candidate who can’t bring in independents, if you have a candidate that is driving people out of our party, then that is a sinking ship.” Beyond their hopes of reclaiming the White House, Haley said having Trump as the party’s nominee and controlling the RNC would also have a ripple effect on down ballot races. “The idea that those now moving into the RNC are saying the RNC is only going to be about Donald Trump, you can hang up the House, you can hang up the Senate, you can hang up the rest of the ticket,” Haley said. Part of that liability, Haley said, is Trump’s various legal issues. “The idea that there is a resolution in the RNC saying Donald Trump can’t use the RNC for his legal slush fund, and he’s upset that that was proposed, tells you everything you need to know,” Haley said. While criticizing Trump as unelectable, Haley also seemingly took a jab at Biden’s age, saying that a Trump nomination would be “guaranteeing a Kamala Harris presidency” and adding that “the Democrats, I fully believe, are going to have a younger candidate going into the general election.” Haley painted her candidacy as a return to normalcy for conservatives, saying Republicans have lost their way on economic issues and foreign policy. “It used to be that Republicans cared about peace through strength,” Haley said. “Now we see Trump siding with Putin, a tyrant and a dictator who kills his political opponents, who arrests journalists and holds them hostage and who continues to say that he wants to destroy America. And you’ve got Trump saying that he would encourage Putin to invade our allies.” “This isolationist approach that Donald Trump is putting over the party is creating a scenario that puts us further in war, not preventing it,” Haley continued. “America can never be so arrogant to think we don’t need friends. After 9/11, we needed a lot of friends.” Haley also said she wants to turn down the heat on political discourse. “It is not normal for Joe Biden to call opponents fascists and Donald Trump to call opponents ‘vermin,’” Haley said. “None of this is normal.” The effects of that division are felt strongest by young people, Haley said. “The focus needs to be on the younger generation, because all they feel is the anger, the hatred and the division. They wonder how they’re ever going to own a home, get a job, make ends meet and if war is going to break out,” Haley said. “Americans owe it to our kids and our grandkids that we start to get our country back to a unified place where we’re all Americans. I am trying to do that.” While Trump beat Haley in her home state of South Carolina by about 20 percentage points, Haley framed the fact that 40% of Republicans didn’t vote for Trump as a sign that the former president’s grip on the party is weakening. Asked which states she thinks she could win heading into Super Tuesday on March 5, when 15 states will hold their primaries, Haley declined to make a prediction. “We don’t have to have a crystal ball and say this is going to happen or that’s going to happen. We don’t live in Russia. We don’t anoint kings. We have elections,” Haley said. Instead, Haley fired back that “I can name 70% of Americans that don’t want Donald Trump or Joe Biden. That’s a pretty big number. I can name that 40% of Republicans in all our early states don’t want Donald Trump. That’s a point that you need to talk about. Those things matter. 60% of Americans think Donald Trump and Joe Biden are too old. Instead of talking about what we think is going to happen, let’s talk about what the American people have told us.” But voters unhappy with the idea of a rematch between Trump and Biden have the chance to forge a different path, Haley said. “In the general election, you’re given a choice. In the primary, you make your choice,” Haley said. “Don’t complain about what happens in the general election if you don’t do something in this primary,” she added. This story was originally produced by the Michigan Advance which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network, including the Daily Montanan, supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. [END] --- [1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/02/27/in-grand-rapids-haley-says-the-republican-party-is-becoming-trumps-playpen/ Published and (C) by Daily Montanan Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/montanan/