Speaking on Meet the Press this Sunday, Nikki Haley was asked if she agreed with recent comments from Mitch McConnell who said Donald Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for Jan. 6. Her answer seemed to signal a shift in her campaign message for 2024.
According to Haley, Trump's biggest offense on that day was "not that he had the rally in the first place. That’s what we do in America. The problem is when he had the opportunity to stop it."
"You know, you have everybody from Fox News anchors to friends to family begging him to say something to get them to stop, including his vice president," Haley said. "And he was silent. And he didn’t say anything. So it was like: 'Why did you allow it to happen?'... Where was he? Why didn’t he do it? Those are the questions he’s going to have to answer."
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Writing in The Bulwark this Tuesday, Will Saletan says that Haley is exactly right in her answer when it comes to Trump's responsibility for the violence on Jan. 6.
"And anyone who supports him—including Haley, if she ends up endorsing him—should be required to explain why a man who can’t answer such incriminating questions should be returned to power," Saletan writes, adding in his piece that Haley is "finally acknowledging" that Jan. 6 is the "most important reason to defeat Donald Trump in this year’s election."
Saletan contends that the most shocking thing about Jan. 6 isn't what Trump did on that day, it's how Republicans covered for him afterwards.
"Legions of cowards and collaborators—Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, Lindsey Graham, John Barrasso, Tim Scott, and many more—chose to ignore or lie about the coup attempt," he writes.
But only for a moment during her TV segment, argues Saleten, Haley seemed to go against the coverup.
Read the full op-ed at The Bulwark.
