Spectrum, liz cheney on the right, joe biden, are warning on a near daily basis an increasingly dire terms that our very democracy is in trouble right now. I dont understand why one partys careen threatens to derail the entire american experiment, the entire republic. Can actually just look no further than what happened last night. Nikki haleys dorsment of donald trump is part of what has become a time honored tradition of Todays Republican Party in the trump era. Prominent republicans whose closely held private views about the expresident may not actually be that different from mine or that of any trump critic or any democrat. And taking all sorts of very public abuse and scorn from donald trump, including attacks on their spouses. Despite all that, despite everything he said about their families and everything they have said about him in return, they turn around and offer him their endorse the. Ted cruzs capitulation before the 2016 election after trump attacked his wife. Cruz said this. Donald, youre a Sniffling Coward and leave heidi the hell alone. Real men dont try to bully women. Thats not an action of strength. Its an action of fear. Its an action of a small and petty man. Who is intimidated by strong women. Small and petty man. Not a real man. Not a real man. We all know what happened after that moment. After he defended his wife, ted cruz turned around and endorsed the man who attacked his wife heidi, turned his back on whatever was in his heart and mind when he made those comments and back on our democracy enable ed trumps presidency and insurrection in 2020. And is currently to this day working to whitewash the violence that took place on january 6th, violence that he called domestic terrorism where he walked that back. Just last night in an interview on cnn, ted kruds cruz said he would not accept the results of the election. After Donald Trumps second impeachment in the weeks that dth sent a mob to storm the capitol putting his own Vice President in mortal danger. Theres no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it. Thats a pattern here. Trump also attacked Mitch Mcconnells wife with a very ugly racist slur. He attacked mcconnell regularly as well. At one point saying he had a death wish for working with President Biden to fund the United States government. And yet as with ted cruz, Mitch Mcconnell also folded, endorsing donald trump for president in 2024. So add to those two, nikki haley the, heres what nikki haley said about donald trump after the january 6th insurrection. Quote, i think hes lost any sort of political viability he was going to have. Hes not going to run are for federal office again. He went down a path he shouldnt have and we shouldnt have followed him. We shouldnt have listened to him. And we cant let that ever happen again. We cant let that ever happen again. That being trump as president. Our friends at morning joe compiled some of what she had to say about trump during the republican pimary contest this year. Take a listen. Times change. And so has trump. Hes gotten more unstable and unhinged. If you mock the service of a combat veteran, you dont deserve a drivers license, let alone being president of the United States. We have seen him get confused. He was confused about me having to do with keeping security away from the capitol. He was confused when he said biden was going to run us into world war ii. Hes not qualified to be the president of of the United States. Its not normal to insult our military heroes and veterans. He was thin skinned and easily distracted. Its not normal to spend 50 million in Campaign Contributions on personal court cases. Theres no way that the American People are going to vote for a convicted criminal. Its not criminal to threaten people who back your opponent. He went and was trying to buddy up with putin. Every time he was in the same room with him, he got weak in the knees. Its not normal to call on russia to invade nato countries. Donald trump has done all of that. And more in just the past month. Now one of the Combat Veterans she calls him out for attacking veterans, wasnt of them is her husband. Watch what she said there on the stump could be easily have come from another wellknown nationally reognized conservative republican named liz cheney. Liz cheney took a different path and has paid a steep political price for being unwaivered in her very similar lines of critique and opposition to the expresident. A lot of the indictment of a second Trump Presidency as well as the last one, that you hear from President Biden. But despite everything that she said, as well as trump mocking her husband while he was deployed, nikki haley made the decision yesterday to endorse that person that she described in that way. Donald trump. When she did, she turned her back on her own voters. Many of whom make the same arguments nikki haley made about trump. They include up to a 5th of the primary electorate in states that voted for her up to two months after she. Dropped out of the race. But nikki haley bending the knee to donald trump says about the state of our democracy is where we start today. The Executive Director for Republican Voters against trump Sara Longwell is back with us. Plus lieutenant and founder of democratic majority action pack amy mcgrath is here. Former congressman david jolly joins us. And at the table Vaughn Hillyard is back with us. Vaughn, any sense of whether tell me your reporting on how this came to be. Number one, there was no phone call between the two camps. We were told since march 6th when she dropped out of the president ial race that she and donald trump have not connected by phone. She has not reached out to establish contact with the former president. So that announcement was done on her own accord here. I think its telling. The north dakota governor who has been on the Campaign Trail with him, he told chuck todd he would never do business with donald trump because of the company is reflective of ones self. Tim scott was somebody who was critical for a long time of donald trump. Especially after january 6th. So nikki haley is really the latest to fall in line. Whats amazing about your reporting yesterday, and its why we dug up mcconnell and cruzs past clashes, is how deeply personal they were. Nikki haley and her husband had a public social Media Broadcast fight with donald trump this year. In the last eight weeks. I think that we have lived this. Im glad you talked about ted cruz. Back in 2016 i was on the road every single day with ted cruz can, including the day he dropped out of the race. It was at a Barbecue Shop when on his way out he said donald trump is immoral and a pathological liar. Two months laters was the National Republican convention. Ted cruz was slated to speak. I got the remarks ahead of time. In his remark ares there was no endorsement of donald trump. And so when he went on the stage, i was in the bowls of the arena not expecting much fanfare. Why would ted cruz endorse the man who mocked his wife and said all these things about. But then he took the stage. And what this clear to me, and eight years later were still playing this out with nikki haley, that was the shot across the bow for republicans. Because ted cruz said the line, if you love our country and love your children as much as i know you do, stand and speak is and vote your conscious. He didnt say vote donald trump. The arena erupted into boos. It was no longer about donald trump. It was the fact that the Republican Party had become donald trump. This was a movement that was turning on the likes of cruz and anybody that was in the way. It was not just the new york delegation. This was the Republican National committee, the key activist of the party. That was the message that was sent to ted cruz that very day. If you want a future in this Republican Party, you have to endorse donald trump. He did that. Weeks later. All these years later, theres person after person, nikki haley the late thaes are evidence that their relevancy in the Republican Party today, not just with donald trump, but among voters, is by standing in line with him. Some of our friends at the conservative network were triggered when i said yesterday as this news was breaking that at a human level, i dont have the ability to understand what makes someone offer their Political Support to someone who has personally smeared their life partner, their spouse. I feel like i needed to turn to someone who understands the psychology. To place your loyalty to the tribe over your feelty to your partner is something i cant get my head around. Does nikki haley endorsement of trump speak to the movement your leading Republican Voters against trump in a way that makes you nervous . How do you make sense of what she did yesterday after the primary campaign she ran . Nikki haley chose to go with her political future, her personal ambitions, over the country. Over what she knows is best for our country. What is so deeply disappointing to me, and i felt this one. I really thought toward the end of nikki haleys run that she had started to sort of speak her truth. You know these republicans absolutely understand donald trump and the threat he poses. We know that they know it. We wait for them to say the truth. It felt like she had found her voice. I held out hope she meant those things when she said donald trump will side with the madman like putin. That she minute that when she said he will abandon our allies. And nikki haley understands how dangerous the world is right now. She understands how dangerous donald trump is for the world. And so to watch her Abandon Everything she knows to be true deep down in order to remain in Good Standing with her political tribe over the bigger tribe of her country is demoralizing. And my fear is there are a lot of voters who have tribal impulses where they are republicans. So they want to stay with the party. They are not democrats. They recognize how dangerous trump is so they look to people like nikki haley for crew cues about how to behavior. She was saying the same things about trump that they feel. It does build a catastrophic Permission Structure for some of those voters. The good news here is that so many of the nikki haley voters were not there for nikki haley. They were there to oppose donald trump. The vast majority of those voters who have been showing up in these primaries to vote against trump will continue to vote against trump regardless of what nikki haley does. I do think its damaging, certainly politically in our attempt to get rid of donald trump, but i also suspect deep down its pretty damaging to her. Their psychology is haley supporters and trump, people who oppose donald trump. Anything but trump. That was your priority . Is that the biggest reason you supported nikki haley . Say. Because of donald trump . Yeah. I would vote for Joe Biden Over donald trump in a heart beat. Youre a republican . I am. What do you do if hes the nominee . I vote for joe biden. Nikki haley. I think donald trump is a threat to the well being of our country. If she drops out, would you be disappointed to endorse trump . I will vote democrat. Thats all there is to it. Its important to me to keep trump out of office again. Project 2025, i have read it. Its scary. Its frightening. I have lived in a constitutional democracy all my life. I want to remain that way. And i want my grandchildren to grow up in one. Not a dictatorship. Im curious. Over the last two elections, have you voted trump in the past . Was it something where you voted for him and trusted him ands disappointed . Yes. I voted for him in 2016. I am a registered republican. I regretted that vote almost immediately. So the Biden Campaign put that out. Those are past trump voters in this cycle they were nikki haley voters. Again, these are these peoples impulses. These people that were interviewed by journalists on the Campaign Trail said thad they would vote for Joe Biden Over donald trump if nikki haley were not an option. Whats interesting is at least for this swath of the vote, it was more than antitrump. They were aware of the threat he represented to democracy. In terms of the campaign nikki haley ran for anyone who didnt see all her speeches, there was a lot about age and fitness, but there was a lot about his role in ending democracy. The threat that he would be if he handed ukraine over to russia. More than anyone else on the stage in the beginning, she ran against trump as a National Security threat. Thats exactly right. I dont think nikki haley ever quite understood the voters who showed up for her. They showed up for her because she became an avatar for expressing their anxieties about donald trump and his threat to democracy thats what i mean. Thats when she found her rhythm in her own campaign. Thats when people were shoing up and being enthusestic for her. Those types of voters, and i think there were a lot of them repped in the nikki haley margins in the primary, i think that those voters vote for joe biden now. I dont think nikki haley was leading a movement that was about nikki haley. I think that for a period of time when she was telling the truth, she was expressing the concerns that this group of Republican Voters, the ones that we talked to all the time who do not want trump to be the standard barer of the party and do not want him in charge of this country, those people are not following nikki haley in her endorsement of donald trump. They are going to vote for joe biden. You were on before the news broke. As it broke, i was following you on twitter. To the degree that words mean anything, her words are the most damning indictment of what she did yesterday. I wonder as someone who talks to voters, do words still matter . I was. I was so dis appointed that i started tweeting all the things that she had said about donald trump through the primary campaign because it is sort of distressing to have seen somebody make such an impassioned case against donald trump on the threat he presents to our country and to turn around and endorse him. I think that this has been the collective problem. What nikki haley did is the reason that donald trump continues to persist in our politics. They all know this to be morally, ethically, and in every way wrong. Then they ignore those instincts for political, tribal and ambition reasons. It is sickening actually because i just want them the to know, i want people like nikki haley to know that she is responsible for making a decision that is actively tearing down the country that she claims to love. And its shameful. I hope she feels ashamed today. Sara longwell, someone who chooses her words carefully, i appreciate you coming back today. Thank you for starting us off. On the other side of the break, well hear from amy and david. Also still to come, the latest that pile of absolutely insane Lunacy Metastasizing within the Republican Party spewing out to an electorate ready, willing and eager to act on it. Dths latest lie that could pose a new and growing threat to our nations Law Enforcement officials. And later in the broadcast, that stunning ut no longer surprising story of a second display of support for attempting to overturn an american president ial election. We told you about the New York Times report yesterday. Well ask the question what happened next for Justice Alito and the continue erosion of public trust and confidence in the members of the United StatesSupreme Court. Well have all those stories and more when deadline white house continues after a quick break. Dont go anywhere. Er a quick break. Dont go anywhere. That right in the dishwasher. Watch me. With cascade Platinum Plus i have upped my dish game. I just scrape. Load. And im done. In that dishwasher . In that dishwasher. Only Platinum Plus is packed with more dawn to remove up to 100 of grease and food residue. Get the highest standard of clean, even in your machine. Clean enough for ya . Yeah. Scrape, load, done. 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