Reacting to Monday’s results in the low-turnout Iowa caucuses, Tuesday’s CBS Mornings opened its second hour by demanding 2024 GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley to not only drop out, but harangue her with the usual issues that only the liberal media cared about as opposed to, you know, real Americans: the 2020 election and demanding Republicans say Donald Trump was “unfit” to return as president.
Ever-pious, fill-in co-host John Dickerson climbed aboard his high horse by first fretting Iowans voted for Trump in a blowout “despite all his legal challenges and what some call his extreme rhetoric.” Dickerson then turned his guns to Haley as she appeared live in New Hampshire: “Ambassador, all good presidents are tested by adversity. You have some. Why is this race not over?”
Haley noted “We’re just getting started” and votes in two more, totally different states in New Hampshire and South Carolina were up next on her docket for what’s actually “a marathon,” “not a sprint.”
Dickerson came off like the entire interview was a waste of his brain cells based on this ho-hum follow-up: “Anything you're going to do differently, Ambassador?”
After Haley said she’s “a stone’s throw away from – from Trump” in the Granite State, Dickerson interjected to argue “30 points in Iowa is – is more than a stone's throw.” Haley, to her credit, corrected him.
Having cried uncle, Dickerson returned to his pompous historian schtick and lectured Haley about how she and other Republicans were suffering from some physiological “obstacle” in being unable to say Trump’s “unfit to be president.” Since she hadn’t said it (or, put simply, the way the liberal media want Republicans to), he called on her to quit the race (click “expand”):
DICKERSON: Campaigns are job interviews. And so, that makes you both a candidate and a job reference for the front-runner. You watched him up close. Many who also did – who watched Donald Trump up close say he's unfit to be president. You won't say that. And it appears that you can't, and I wonder if this is an obstacle for you and your party because if you were to say that, any that you would identify as a character flaw in Donald Trump would be seen by Republicans voters as a compliment. If you can't say as someone who watched him up close that he’s unfit to be president, why shouldn't the voters pick the guy with more experience?
HALEY: I mean, John, if you listened to my speech last night, I basically said that no one wants to go back to the same old thing that we’ve always had. 70 percent of Americans don't want to see Trump or Biden. The majority of Americans disprove [sic] of both of them. Both have put our kids in trillions of dollars in debt we're never going to be forgiven for. So, look, I have said both are caught up in the grievances and investigations. And Americans want to move forward with a new generational leader. You guys want me to hate Trump. Some people want me to love Trump. I don't love him or hate him. I call it out like I see it. And, when I see something, I say it. I said, I don't think he needs to be the next president. I’m going to be the next president. We should leave the chaos of the past and we move forward with the solutions to the future.
Dickerson asked again, but Haley reiterated she believes “chaos follows” Trump “[a]nd we can't have a country in disarray and have a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos.”
Co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King entered the chat with another rallying cry of the liberal media: using the 2020 election to ostracize Republicans:
How do you convince some of Trump’s voters to vote for you. It’s interesting. The latest poll shows, yesterday, 65 percent of the caucus voters still do not believe that Joe Biden legitimately won this election. How do you combat it when people just don't believe the facts? That, no matter what you say, no matter what you say, no matter what you do, he appears, in many respects, to be untouchable. How do you sway his voters to say, “over here, guys, please listen to what we're saying”?
Haley went on and on about telling voters “the truth” and “hard truth” because “[t]hat’s what people want”, but King doubled down: “I'm wondering – governor – I’m wondering, governor, do they really want the truth? Honestly – honestly, I'm wondering do they want the truth because you give them the truth but they still say nope, nope, nope, it's not legit.”
Haley doubled down, adding she instead speaks “the truth about the things they care about” (instead of the media) like the economy and immigration since “[n]obody’s talking about the election of 2020.”
King zoomed out with a Taylor Swift reference for her penultimate question (with the last one being about how her family’s doing amid the rampant ups and downs of campaigning): “So, are you like a Taylor Swift song, Shake It Off, keep going?...Is your messaging – are you going to do anything you're going to do differently in New Hampshire that you didn’t do in Iowa?”
To see the relevant transcript from January 16, click here.
