The storming of the US Congress severely shocked the USA. The Republican candidate Haley now shot against Trump, who must answer for himself.
Washington DC – The former UN ambassador Nikki Haley called January 6, 2021 a “terrible day” and expressed her harshest criticism to date of the former president Donald Trump and his false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
“Donald Trump basically said the election was stolen. He kept talking about the election being stolen,” Haley said Wednesday night during the Republican primary debate hosted by CNN. “This election? Trump lost it. Biden won the election. And the idea that [Trump] “To continue to say these things to scare the American people is wrong.”
Haley also said Trump must answer for the 2021 attack on the US Capitol, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the building to protest the certification of Trump's election victory Joe Biden to prevent. Many rioters that day chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” in the false belief pushed by Trump that then-Vice President Mike Pence have the power to stop Congress from certifying Biden's victory. The attack killed five people, including a police officer and a woman who was shot dead by police. Two other officers on duty that day later died by suicide, and more than 100 officers were injured.
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Republican candidate Haley attacks Trump: “Trump will have to answer for this”
“He said January 6th was a beautiful day. I think January 6th was a terrible day and we shouldn't want something like that to happen again,” Haley said. She later reiterated, “I think what happened on January 6th was a terrible day, and I think President Trump will have to answer for it.”
Haley tempered her response by saying that there were “discrepancies” in the 2020 election that “should be concerning,” and pointed out that as governor of South Carolina, she signed a law requiring voters to vote before the election Must present valid ID to vote.
“I think when absentee ballots are sent out, you should be able to verify the signatures,” Haley said. “That’s why I believe that the ballots should be counted on election day and you should receive the results on election day.”
Asked whether there was a meaningful difference in understanding the Constitution between her and Trump, Haley explained that Trump had gone too far in urging his allies to overturn the 2020 election results. “The fact that he wanted to change what the states did, the fact that he wanted to overturn the elections in D.C. — those votes happen at the state level,” she said. “Washington will never allow these votes to be changed at the federal level. States’ rights are important.”
The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis (R), the only other candidate to join Haley on stage Wednesday night, avoided attacking Trump and did not mention the Jan. 6 attack when asked the same question about whether he and the former president would see the constitution differently. Throughout his campaign, DeSantis has refrained from criticizing Trump too harshly over the insurrection. He even went so far as to say that the former president “should have stepped up” to stop the rioters but that he did not believe Trump acted with criminal intent.
US presidential election 2024: Republican Haley calls for the return of “reason to America”
Both candidates were also questioned about an argument Trump's lawyer made to the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday that he was protected from criminal prosecution as president – even if he ordered the military to assassinate a political rival – , if he had not previously been impeached and convicted by the Senate.
“That's ridiculous. This is absolutely ridiculous. … We have to use common sense here,” said Haley, who disagreed with Trump’s legal argument. She also added that the country was “totally divided” after Trump's presidency and remains so under Biden.
“What a leader does is bring out the best in people and get them to see the way forward,” she said. “This is what we need in our country. We don't need this chaos anymore. We need someone who will be a new leader who will bring sanity back to America.”
DeSantis also disagreed with Trump's legal arguments and predicted that the courts would rule on the issue of broad immunity against the former president. He also warned that if Trump is the Republican presidential nominee, Democrats would turn the general election into a referendum on the Jan. 6 attack and Trump's legal troubles.
About the author
Amy B. Wang is a national politics reporter. She joined The Washington Post in 2016 after working at the Arizona Republic for seven years.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on January 11, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com“ was published – as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.
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