It has been noted that following her third-place showing in the Iowa caucuses, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said she planned to participate in Thursday’s New Hampshire GOP debate if frontrunner Donald Trump shows up.
MSNBC’s Ali Vitali asked Haley, “Should we expect to see you on the debate stage in New Hampshire?”
“Is Trump going to be on the debate stage?” Haley asked back.
“Is that the metric?”
“I mean, I’ve debated five times already and had strong debates. Now, it’s time to get Trump on the stage,” Haley said.
“So, if he comes, then you’ll come. Otherwise, nah?” Vitali pressed.
“I think we need to see, is Trump going to be on the stage? That’s my question.”
Haley also posted to her X (formerly Twitter) account:
“We’ve had five great debates in this campaign. Unfortunately, Donald Trump has ducked all of them,” Haley posted. “He has nowhere left to hide. The next debate I do will either be with Donald Trump or with Joe Biden. I look forward to it.”
Despite skipping all GOP debates, Trump won 51% of Iowa’s GOP vote, while DeSantis won 21% and Haley got 19% rivals.
“I want to congratulate Ron and Nikki for having a good time together. We’re all having a good time together! And I think they both actually did very well, I really do. I think they both did very well,” Trump said.
Haley’s speech thanked Iowans for their “kindness,” and she posted to social media:
“Thank you, Iowa! You’re faithful, patriotic & hardworking, and I’m grateful to each of you! Now it’s on to New Hampshire, where this campaign is the last best hope of stopping the Trump-Biden rematch that no one wants. We offer America a better choice.”
“The Washington Post reported that ABC and WMUR ‘have officially given Donald Trump and Nikki Haley’s campaigns a deadline of 5:00 pm Eastern time today to commit’ to their planned Thursday debate, adding that the networks will ‘update’ their plans accordingly,” the New Hampshire Bulletin reported.
