'Two-faced': Ex-GOP strategist unloads on up-and-coming presidential candidate

During Sunday's episode of MSNBC's The Katie Phang Show, ex-Republican Tara Setmayer insisted former South Carolina governor and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley cannot be trusted and, as a result, is "unqualified to hold the highest office."

Setmayer told Phang, "A lot of us who thought that Nikki Haley — I mean, I was a Republican for 27 years — she was an up-and-comer, she was someone we looked to and said, 'Okay, she's got potential for a larger office, we like what she did in South Carolina, standing up to the races, taking down the flag of treason — as we called it at The Lincoln Project — Confederate flag.'"

"Those were bold moves in South Carolina. But then it was politically advantageous to her, in her mind, she took the other side when she needed to. AKA, becoming Donald Trump's U.N. ambassador. You can't trust her, will the real Nikki Haley please stand up? I don't think we really know who that is. Does she?"

Phang chimed in saying, "And to your point, I'm glad you brought it up, Tara. Haley initially endorsed [U.S. Senator] Marco Rubio (R-FL) in 2016."

Setmayer added, "I was there in South Carolina in the primary when she did that."

Phang continued, "And she told Marco Rubio, 'I'm gonna do whatever it takes to help you beat Donald Trump,' including publicly berating Trump. When Rubio lost, she then supported Ted Cruz. We can't account for taste, right? Then she votes for Trump, joining his administration, even after he publicly bullied her. There's a Democratic strategist in South Carolina who said, quote, 'She,' as in Nikki Haley, 'will adapt to whatever benefits her, isn't that, Tara, just a nice way of saying she's two-faced, and she'll do and say what it takes to get people to like her?'"

Setmayer replied, "Absolutely. We've seen this, she's done it time and time again. She tries to package it a little bit nicer. Her strategists are trying — they know that this is an issue — so they're trying to turn this around now and use it as the badge of valor. Well she knows how to work both sides. That means she's able to look at both sides of an issue and come to, you know, a good bipartisan agreement or find middle ground. Nice try. But we all see and hear what Nikki Hale has done. Let's not forget that she also raised her hand and said she would support Donald Trump if he were the nominee and that she would pardon him. So which is it? This is a time for choosing."

The former Republican continued, "We're not talking about both sides of how you feel about marginal tax rates or health care policy. We're talking about whether you're supporting someone who wants to destroy our Constitution and destroy our Democratic republic. That's what we're talking about here. These are very serious issues. There is no both sides of authoritarianism here that you can take, which she is trying to do here, playing both sides in order to get through the primary. So, for Nikki Haley, it is a time for choosing.

"You need to choose whether it's America and our democracy, or you're gonna continue to bow to Trumpism, which will destroy us. You can't have it both ways. That's the most frustrating part about her. Playing both sides of this is partially normalizing what Donald Trump has done to this country and to the Republican Party. And it's people like her, the enablers like her, that have allowed us to get to this point in the first place. As Americans, we should reject that. You either take a position against authoritarianism and pro- democracy, or you're unqualified to hold the highest office in the land, full stop."