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It was in early June when Donald Trump was indicted in the former president’s classified documents scandal, and about a week later, Nikki Haley offered some criticism of her former boss. If the allegations in the indictment were true, the former ambassador said, it meant Trump was “incredibly reckless” and put “all of our military men and women in danger.”
But in the same interview, the South Carolina Republican nevertheless added that she’d be “inclined” to pardon the former president if she were elected to the White House.
Late last week, as my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim reported, Haley’s position on the matter has come into even sharper focus.
On the heels of a very bad week for Nikki Haley, the Republican presidential candidate said she would pardon Donald Trump if he’s convicted of federal crimes. “I would pardon Trump if he is found guilty,” she said at a campaign event in Plymouth, New Hampshire, on Thursday.
“A leader needs to think about what’s in the best interest of the country,” Haley said, in response to a question from a 9-year-old child. “What’s in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail that continues to divide our country. What’s in the best interest of our country is to pardon him so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him.”
She’s not alone. Fellow GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said more than once last summer that he’s prepared to pardon Trump, claiming such a move could help Americans “come together.” The day after Haley’s comments last week, the Florida governor reiterated his support for also pardoning the former president. Referring to Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon in 1974, DeSantis told reporters: “I think we got to move on as a country and, you know, like Ford did to Nixon, because the divisions are just not in the country’s interest.”
There are a few things to keep in mind about such rhetoric. The first is that Haley is profoundly mistaken if she believes pardoning Trump for potential federal convictions would mean Americans would “no longer talk about him.” It’s not as if he would simply slink away to Mar-a-Lago, with a Haley-endorsed pardon in hand, to enjoy retirement.
Second, the idea that it’s “in the country’s interest” to simply let a suspected felon get away with dangerous and unprecedented alleged crimes is highly debatable. The more future presidents are told they’ll be pardoned for serious felonies, creating an accountability-free dynamic, the less they’ll be restrained.
But I’m also struck by the fact that credible White House contenders are having to answer questions like these in the first place. As we discussed several months ago, ordinarily, candidates for the nation’s highest office don’t have to think much about whether they’d issue pardons for one of their rivals. That’s generally because, as a rule, those charged with multiple felonies don’t seek the presidency.
In the 2024 election cycle, Republican politics is ... different.