Lawrence O’Donnell Says Nikki Haley Can’t Win Because Republicans Believe Her Blood Is ‘Poisoned’
MSNBC host anchor Lawrence O’Donnell argued that overwhelming Republican support for former President Donald Trump’s claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country was a key reason Nikki Haley couldn’t convert MAGA voters ahead of the Iowa caucus.
O’Donnell was part of MSNBC’s election night coverage of Trump’s win in Iowa and made his comments after hosts Ari Melber and Jen Psaki discussed how the indictments against Trump helped him gain GOP support.
“Look, I also think we’re going to see tomorrow, and we saw last week that Trump is basically running a campaign in the courtroom, right. He was there more than he was in Iowa over the last week. Is that going to work for the Republican electorate? Seems pretty clearly from these entrance polls. Yes. But to your point, the whole electorate is an entirely different population of people. And Trump loves his own strategy. So, it’s very possible that he may keep doubling down on that,” Psaki said.
O’Donnell agreed and then pivoted, arguing, “The worst thing we’ve learned about the Republican primary electorate is not yet in these entrance poll questions tonight. CBS poll, their final poll before the Iowa caucuses, this is a national poll shows that 81% of Republican primary voters and caucus participants, 81% of those people, agree with Donald Trump that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country.”
“That means that 81% of the Republican primary electorate believe Nikki Haley has poisoned blood and is poisoning the blood of the United States,” O’Donnell declared of Haley, whose parents were both immigrants from India. He continued:
So, that as a roadblock for Nikki Haley is impossible. But it also shows you what you’re up against in any kind of campaign against voters like that, the convertability of voters like that to anything other than the Trump view of the world is impossible. There’s no campaign ad, there’s no speech you can make. There’s no, you know, Republican who Chris Christie might be able to convince some of them. Not them. Not any of the 81%. Not one of them can be converted.
“And the bottom line is, you know, as much as we, you know, we want to respect and it’s been interesting listening to these voters, you must understand that the Republican base is overwhelmingly those people,” quickly agreed Joy Reid, adding:
It’s white evangelicals for whom supporting Trump is a matter of faith. It is a matter of their religion. It is a religion. And therefore Nikki Haley is unacceptable for the reasons Lawrence has just said. She is one of the people poisoning the blood of the country.
Vivek Ramaswamy’s wife went out into Iowa to try to convince people to vote for her husband when she got back, as people saying, ‘Well, you know, um, where are you from again? Were you born in the, you know, wasn’t was your husband born in the United States? Because, you know, what religion are you again? Oh, you were Hindu. I don’t know if that’s acceptable to me.’
And saying that to her face and he suddenly discovered at the end that, I don’t know, he went sideways with Trump somehow. And Trump started attacking him and saying he actually went birther on him, you know, and any moment those voters could do the same thing.
Watch the full clip above via MSNBC.
