Brit Hume discussed Nikki Haley’s chances in the Republican primary, suggesting that she may not continue if she doesn’t improve in South Carolina.
He also commented on the failed immigration bill in the Senate, attributing it to the narrow margins in both Houses and the reluctance of members to vote for potentially unpopular bills in an election year.
“As we head towards South Carolina, obviously Nikki Haley saying she is going to fight on there. It’s her home state. You look at the RealClearPolitics average of polls, she’s trailing significantly in her home state. She’s trailing in other polls, if you look at other polls, in really every big state and every state on Super Tuesday. So even though she is having success raising money what do you think the path is here?” Bret Baier asked.
“Well, it would be hard to identify a path for her if she can’t do any better than she now appears to be doing in South Carolina, especially after this embarrassment in Nevada. I think, you know, what is more likely than anything to happen is she will either wait to see if the polls change between now and South Carolina and if they don’t, she might not even want to still be a candidate when the ballots are counted because it would be terribly embarrassing to her to suffer some massive defeat in her home state,” Hume said.
“Even though she does a little better after South Carolina, she would have to really rally some to do well enough to stay in after that. So, if it’s respectable, she still might not go on. Candidates tend to stay in as long as have money. She appears to have money. So she might be with us for a while but I can’t see a path.”
“Are there risks, the downside politically if she stays in too long even though she has money?” Baier asked.
“Well, maybe. But I think, you know, she can’t go on forever. The money will dry up in a hurry if it’s hopeless. There is a lot of anti-Trump money out there that is keeping her afloat. And people genuinely admire her. She is a competent candidate. There is no doubt about that. She is running in the non-Trump lane of the Republican party and the problem with that is, the non-Trump lane of the Republican party is pretty narrow,” Hume said.
“Let’s turn to immigration. You saw President Biden the other day at the White House repeatedly say the reason this bill is going down is because of former President Trump and if there are more problems at the border it’s because of former President Donald Trump. What about that kind of rhetorical jujitsu and how this is going to play?” Baier asked.
“Well, I suppose it’s worth a try for him and his camp. But people have been living with this situation on the border now for some years and he has been responsible and he hasn’t done what he could have done. And most people, I think, understand that. I think this failure of this immigration bill was a train wreck, really showing how dysfunctional the situation is in Congress,” Hume said.
“A function, I think Bret mostly of the fact that extremely narrow margins in both Houses. So you can only lose a few members for the bill to go down. In the House, that bill was denounced by immigration hawks as being grossly insufficient although it contained sufficiently numerous concessions from reluctant Democrats that the Border Patrol Union endorsed it and they are the people that have to go out and enforce those laws every day and they say it was a good bill.”
“I don’t think it was so much it was a bad bill. It’s there is no margin for error in either House and nobody is going to step up in an election year and vote for a bill that might prove unpopular to enough of their constituents to cause them trouble.”
Hume speculated on the tenuous leadership of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
“We see how tenuous the leadership is in the House and how that narrow that majority is for Speaker Johnson. But are we now seeing maybe a collapse of what we had seen as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell really being the maestro behind the scenes on the minority on the Senate side. Maybe it’s more tenuous than it has been,” Baier said.
“I think that’s probably true. Bret. I still think he retains the support of the majority of his caucus. When Ted Cruz comes out with other some other Senators to say resign he only has a handful of Republican Senators standing with him. It’s not entirely clear how they all feel about it anyway,” Hume said.
“Being opposed by Ted Cruz is not proved a path to leaving your office so far. But, it could mount. And he clearly is not strong and well and robust as he used to be, and that doesn’t help either. Yeah, is he in some difficulty. So far not critical but some.”
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