Nikki Haley Isn’t Going to Beat Liar-in-Chief Trump By Making Easily Debunked Claims

AP Photo/Gerald Herbert; AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File

During Wednesday night’s fourth Republican primary debate that aired on NewsNation, presidential candidate and former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley made a claim that TikTok users become “17 percent more anti-Semitic” for every “30 minutes” spent on the app. That claim was based on a survey that was later debunked by the organization that conducted it.

Because, of course, it was.

It’s a good talking point if you’re trying to argue for a ban on TikTok, but the problem with many political talking points is that they’re often based on cherry-picked or just plain bad information. Or, in this case, it was cherry-picked and then misinterpreted information.

According to NBC News, the survey findings actually showed that “[p]eople who said they spent at least 30 minutes a day on TikTok were 17% more likely to hold antisemitic or anti-Israel views compared to those who don’t use TikTok at all.”

To quote Emily Litella, “Well, that’s different! Never mind!”

But this isn’t about janky surveys. This is about people who should know better.

I’ll start with a caveat: Nikki Haley is not going to be the GOP nominee for president. And former President Donald Trump has lied about nearly everything he’s ever done in the last 40-plus years and it has only gotten him rewarded. But if you’re going to beat a record like that (which is not working for Vivek Ramaswamy) or sell yourself as the honest alternative, you need to do better than this amateur tomfoolery.

Nikki Haley is a smart woman. She’s incredibly accomplished and has executive and foreign policy cred that likely (no, definitely) scares the hell out of people like Vivek Ramaswamy. I will never, ever cast a vote for her because I find her views and positions abhorrent, but I’m not going to deny her all that cred. That said, she should know better than to fall for garbage like this.

Immediately following every single blessed political debate, especially when candidates know how gullible a large portion of the electorate is, there is a fact check. Donald Trump, a known liar, gets a factcheck after a one-on-one interview because either no one trusts the interviewer to hold him accountable or it’s just flat-out impossible for one person to keep up with all those lies in real time.

But Nikki Haley is supposed to be better than that. She’s supposed to be the alternative to Trump, and she’s vying for a position that depends on making life-or-death calls based on reliable information — and communicating accurate information to the American people.

So, when Nikki Haley cites a shitty, viral Twitter graphic during a presidential debate because it fits into her talking points, I have to wonder: Is she cool with presenting bad information to people for the purpose of bolstering her positions? And what damage could that bad information unleash?

This is like a guy who lies about his height on a dating profile. Shorter guys always say they’re 5’11” when they are 5’9″ or less. But while there’s nothing wrong with being short, there is a big problem with lying, especially about something I’m gonna find out the moment I see you. And it raises a very obvious red flag: what else are you cool with lying about?

I expect this kind of garbage from Ramaswamy and Gov. Ron DeSantis (who also literally lies about his height) and even Gov. Chris Christie. But for someone who I know had to fight more and harder than any of those fellas, I expect better. For me, Nikki Haley is often the only adult on the stage during these debates, and while I accept her spewing little white lies during a primary where she has to appeal to crazy people, I’m not okay with her lying about something I can look up on Google and call her on. It’s sloppy. It’s lazy. And even for me, a bleeding heart liberal who will never vote for her, I want to know that even if she did somehow end up running the country, that she’s not going to doctor data to bend to her will so she can do whatever she wants.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.