A conversation with Nikki Haley

MEREDITH — Ahead of her town hall Wednesday, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley sat down with The Laconia Daily Sun to talk about the issues affecting Lakes Region voters and the momentum she’s building as the New Hampshire primary approaches.

Daily Sun: One of the issues most acutely felt not only in New Hampshire but by Lakes Region voters is housing. What kind of levers should the federal government be pulling to ease pressures not only on potential homebuyers, but on renters, as well?

Nikki Haley: There's multiple things that are going on here. First, you look at that influx of cash that went across in government: really hurt everybody. Because what that did is it affected our treasury rates, that in turn affected our mortgage interest rates, our automobile interest rates and everything went up. On top of that, you've got a supply side issue. That also became an issue and it ran the cost of housing up again. But you look at the cost of rent, you look at the cost of groceries, you look at the cost of electricity — groceries and electricity are up 25%. Rent’s up even more than that. 

And so the first thing is stop the spending. The second thing is focus on the supply chain and see what we need to do to get the cost of supplies down. And the third thing is we do need to talk to the banks. My daughter just got married. I saw how hard it was for her and her husband to buy a home. Banks are not lending easily. There was a stat that came out: the average age of a homebuyer is 49 years old. That's not OK. We can't be OK with that. We need young professionals to feel like they can own a home. We need them to find one that's affordable, with interest rates that don't hike it up too much. And to make sure that they can too have the American dream.

So multiple things we need to do on that front: mainly the economy, secondly with supply chain and thirdly with making sure that we are dealing with the banks and trying to figure out what we can do to open those credit lines for them.

Sun: Same question but with child care costs: What can the federal government do to help bring those down at the local level?

Haley: The best thing is to put more money in people's pockets. Child care really went through the roof during COVID because of what they did, but the main thing is, you're gonna see me cut taxes on the middle class. We're watching the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. We've got to give space to the middle class. We're going to eliminate the federal gas and diesel tax. We're going to cut middle class tax rates, we're going to make the small business tax cuts permanent and then we're going to focus on inflation because everything is so much more expensive. So when we do that, that's going to open up cash for child care. 

I know when Michael and I were raising our kids, a huge portion of what we made went to child care — that's even more now. And so you've got families having to decide, do they stay home with their children, or do they try and work? That shouldn't be an issue; we've got to continue to make it easier for parents.

Sun: Both before and since the war erupted in the Middle East, an issue in New England has been spiking instances of neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups. What can the president do really to help address that resurgence?

Haley: Understand where it's coming from. Look at the sources of where it's coming from: there are a few places. One, we're seeing it, if you look in universities. There was a lot of foreign money going into universities. It's not just China, which you always hear about, there's Arab money in there, as well. And so what happens is, that's the reason you're seeing a lot of the pro-Hamas protests, that's the reason you're seeing a lot of the other divisions that have caused, so that's the first thing is we've got to tell universities you either take foreign money or you take American money but no longer taking both.

The second thing is the internet. Ban TikTok. There's a reason India banned it and there's a reason Nepal banned it last week: they said it was causing social disruption. Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have said it's the cheapest form of warfare. They're not just doing it here. They're doing it in Europe. And what they do is they put out information that causes us to divide, misinformation, and they're trying to create chaos. Why are we allowing that to happen?

With the rest of the social media outlets, they need to, No. 1, show us their algorithms so that all Americans can see why things get pushed. The second thing is they need to show us that the people on social media are actual people. There are a lot of foreign bots out there that are putting a lot of this rhetoric out there that young people are reading and thinking that it's real, and there's not even a person behind it. We need social media to do their job and get rid of the foreign bots. We want freedom of speech for Americans. We don't want freedom of speech for Russians and Hamas and that's what's happening right now. So those are influences that are literally polluting the minds of so many of our younger people and adults as well.

I think Biden needs to lead the charge on this. Where is he? You know, he'll sit there and lecture everybody on how ‘We shouldn't have hate, we shouldn't have antisemitism. We shouldn't have, you know, any sort of racism whatsoever.’ Well, do something about what's causing all that. Those are the factors that are causing it to heat up. Let's get the foreign influence out of our country.

Sun: What about other social media sites, such as Gab, that have been known to be hotspots for white nationalists and neo-Nazi groups? Is there more regulation that should be put on those as well?

Haley: We want to continue to have freedom of speech. When it turns to violence, that's a different story. So internet sites and social media sites have the ability now to look for triggers and things like that. They need to be combining with law enforcement to see if there are any threats of violence. We always need to be aware of that, so you know, there's always going to be bad actors out there that think hate is OK. But if we know who's real and who's not, that's the first problem. The second thing is if it's associated with violence, we need to hold them accountable so that people can can see it for what it is. I mean, I wish there was transparency in social media. I wish we could see the people who were saying and doing these things because as a mom, I think it would make things a lot more civil. But until then, we need to make sure we call out hate wherever we see it, no matter what kind of hate it is, we can never tolerate it.

Sun: One of the biggest assets of the president is the bully pulpit. As a candidate, you've really emphasized your policy specifics and your policy platform. But how would you use the bully pulpit? What kind of tone would you take in those softer conversations directly with Americans?

Haley: I think the tone at the top matters. I saw this when I was governor of South Carolina, we had some very sensitive issues. If you go back to the church shooting that we had, where we lost nine amazing people, that was on the heels of Ferguson. It was at a time where there were riots in other states, so the national media came in and wanted to make it about racism and gun control and the death penalty. Really focusing on bringing people together during a crisis instead of bringing out their worst instincts is something that we focused on.

It was a hard thing to do. Calling for the Confederate flag to come down took two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate, which is an impossible feat. But what we did was we brought out the best in people and got them to see where South Carolina could go if we did that. A leader needs to bring out the best in people, not the worst in people. And that's the problem we have right now in our country. We are continuing to get divided over what separates us. We have to first get united as Americans and bring that patriotism and love of country back and make sure that we're showing people how we can be a better country. 

This national self-loathing is killing our country right now. When people say America is bad or rotten or racist: it's not. I was elected the first female minority governor in history. America is not racist, it's blessed. And we have to start focusing on the goodness of America. You know, when my husband is sacrificing and serving overseas, for us to have the freedoms that we hold dear, when I was at the United Nations, so many ambassadors loved the fact that we had freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do whatever we wanted to do without government getting in the way. We need to appreciate those blessings and build on those instead of tearing each other apart in the process.

Sun: A podcast I listened to recently asked its listeners to pick their ideal matchup for 2024. And one of the most popular the answers they received was you against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. I'm wondering what you think about that, and if, potentially, we might see a Haley versus Whitmer debate on Fox anytime soon? 

Haley: I have said from the beginning, a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Kamala Harris. I see me and Kamala Harris going through this to the end; that's what I expect. Whoever the Democrats put up, I welcome it. I welcome the debate. 

You're not going to see me being different in a primary and different in a general. What you see me now is what you're gonna see me the whole way through. The momentum is real: we feel it on the ground. We feel it in Iowa. We just had over 2,500 people at a rally in South Carolina and even more outside. It's real because we're talking about the fact that it's time for a new generational leader. 

Let's leave all the talk behind and let's focus on action. I've been a governor. I know what it means to deal with bureaucracy. I know how to get things done. I know how to be an executive. I've been an ambassador. I dealt with Russia, China, Iran, Israel, all of these countries every day when I was at the United Nations. There's no learning curve here. We just go in and we start getting things done for the American people.