Nikki Haley Gives Trump a Free Pass on Sexual Abuse Verdict: ‘We’ve Got to Leave the Baggage and the Negativity Behind’

GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley declined to comment on a jury’s conclusion that her rival, former president Donald Trump, was liable for sexually abusing Elle advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.

On his radio show on Wednesday morning, conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt asked Haley for her reaction to the verdict.

“I mean, I’m not going to get into that. That’s something for Trump to respond to,” asserted Haley. She continued:

You know, I mean I think the focus has to be not to be distracted. That’s why we’ve got to leave the baggage and the negativity behind. We’ve got to focus on what people are talking about. I’m doing town halls all over Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina. And they are concerned about inflation. They’re concerned about their kids’ education. They’re concerned about the border and how out of control it is. They’re concerned about crime and what’s happening with, you know, why is there a Chinese spy balloon flying over us. Those are the things they care about. I’ll let Trump respond to that, but no need to comment on it.

Hewitt followed up by asking it it would be “legitimate” for CNN’s Kaitlan Collins to ask Trump about the verdict during her town hall with him on Wednesday evening.

Haley indicated that it would. “Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think she can ask the question. I think he’s got to answer for it, but you know, it’s not my case. It’s his case, so I think he, you know, I think she’s going to ask the question, and I think he’s going to answer it,” she replied.

The ex-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations has for the most part declined to criticize her old boss substantively. Last month, Haley knocked him for “living in the past” and argued that the Republican Party and country “can’t deal with the baggage” he brings with him, but also cast him as a victim.

“He’s been abused – the way that he has been treated in office and out of office is wrong,” she argued.

She’s been more scathing in her attacks on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R), who she has characterized as having “thin skin” and accused of “copying” Trump.

“President Trump is right when he says Governor DeSantis is copying him — first in his style, then on entitlement reform, and now on Ukraine. I have a different style than President Trump, and while I agree with him on most policies, I do not on those,” submitted Haley in March.

Haley comes in fourth place in most surveys of the Republican primary field according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, behind Trump and two undeclared candidates: DeSantis and former vice president Mike Pence.

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