After Carroll Verdict, Haley Says ‘America Can Do
Better’ Than Trump or Biden
As Trump campaign surrogates defended the former
president in light of an $83.3 million defamation verdict, Nikki Haley said his
legal troubles continued to be a distraction.
Chris
Cameron
By Chris
Cameron
Jan. 26,
2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/26/us/politics/carroll-verdict-haley-trump.html
Nikki Haley
criticized Donald J. Trump on Friday, saying, “America can do better than
Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” after a Manhattan jury had ordered the former
president to pay $83.3 million for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll.
It was the
latest iteration of Ms. Haley’s new attack line against Mr. Trump, portraying
another Trump presidency as just as bad for the country as another four years
of President Biden. Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, began
making similar statements after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida dropped out of the
race on Sunday, leaving her as the last serious threat to Mr. Trump’s
candidacy.
“Donald
Trump wants to be the presumptive Republican nominee and we’re talking about
$83 million in damages,” Ms. Haley wrote on social media, adding that Mr.
Trump’s legal troubles continued to be a distraction. “We’re not talking about
fixing the border. We’re not talking about tackling inflation.”
Ms. Haley
is preparing for what may be the final stand of her presidential campaign,
facing off against Mr. Trump next month in a critical primary in her home state
of South Carolina. Ms. Haley has largely avoided commenting on Mr. Trump’s
legal cases, but the former president leads her by wide margins in polls, and
she appears to be turning up the heat in an effort to catch him.
Mr. Trump
lashed out on social media soon after the verdict, attacking the civil trial as
a “Biden Directed Witch Hunt” despite the fact that Ms. Carroll sued Mr. Trump
in 2019, before he had left office and while Mr. Biden was just one of many
Democratic presidential candidates.
The verdict
was an extraordinary moment for a front-runner in a presidential nominating
contest. A jury penalized Mr. Trump $83.3 million for defamation just three
days after he had won a second nominating contest — in New Hampshire, by 11
percentage points. Mr. Trump also faces 91 felony counts in four separate
criminal cases.
“Absolutely
ridiculous,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, of the
verdict, adding, “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a
Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT
AMERICA!”
Surrogates
for Mr. Trump’s campaign also criticized the verdict. Representative Marjorie
Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on social media that Mr. Trump “was denied a
fair trial in NY where judges are now political” activists. Representative
Elise Stefanik of New York, who is seen by many to be in the running to be Mr.
Trump’s vice president, said the trial was an effort by Democrats to weaponize
the justice system and “bankrupt” Mr. Trump.
Ms. Carroll
accused Mr. Trump in 2019 of raping her in a department store dressing room
decades earlier. Last May, a different Manhattan jury awarded her $5 million
after finding Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing her and for defaming her in
a social media post.
Senator
Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, a national co-chair of Mr. Biden’s
re-election campaign, said in an interview on CNN that the verdict “tells you
something about” Mr. Trump’s character, adding that “this is someone who thinks
that presidents should have immunity to allow them to do whatever they want.”
Chris
Cameron covers politics for The Times, focusing on breaking news and the 2024
campaign. More about Chris Cameron
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