Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said after last week’s disastrous debate that Democratic leaders will ultimately abandon President Biden and replace him with a “younger,” “more vibrant” candidate.
Haley said The Wall Street Journal In an interview over the weekend, he said Republicans would do well to prepare for a new presidential candidate to emerge, reiterating his repeated insistence that Biden will not be the Democratic nominee in the 2024 Republican primary.
“They’re going to make a smart decision. They’re going to bring in young people, they’re going to bring in people with energy, they’re going to bring in people with experience,” said Haley, 52.
“Now is the time for the Republican Party to prepare and prepare for what’s coming, because there’s no way the Democratic Party can survive if we allow Joe Biden to continue to be the nominee,” she said.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and one-time U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had sought to impress upon Republicans that former President Donald Trump would be in a weaker position than she was if he were the Democratic nominee in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
Despite a fierce election battle between the two, Haley later supported Trump, who won the Republican nomination by a landslide, while the Biden campaign sought to peel away Republican voters who were skeptical of her.
Democrats in and outside Washington flinched as a frail-looking Biden occasionally muttered and stared blankly into space during Thursday’s debate with Trump on CNN.
Some Democrats worry they will inevitably lose to Trump because of voter anxieties about their age and have urged the party to reconsider him as leader.
In fact, a new poll finds that 72% of registered voters don’t believe President Biden has the “necessary mental and cognitive health to serve as president.” CBS News/YouGov Poll found.
The poll found that 41% of Democrats did not believe Biden was fit for the presidency, while 59% believed he was.
Biden’s team has categorically denied any notion that he would withdraw from the election.
The president himself seemed to publicly acknowledge that the debate was not his best outcome, but stressed that he would not run for reelection if he did not believe he could win.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison declared after the debate that “we still support Biden,” and the Biden campaign released a memo arguing that putting their candidate back on top would be an ominous omen.
But Haley later wrote in X magazine that “America deserves the strongest leader it can possibly have.”
“Thursday night was shocking. It’s why I’ve been calling for everyone running for office to be tested for mental abilities. Joe Biden owes it to the American people to be transparent about his cognitive abilities.”
Haley, who served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2018, told The Wall Street Journal that she had a “good conversation” with her former boss about a week ago.
Trump has publicly suggested he could replace Biden as the Democrat’s top presidential candidate.
Both he and Biden are set to face off in another debate hosted by CBS on September 10. Biden’s team has insisted that he will take part in the debate.
