Nikki Haley on Colorado Decision: ‘I Will Beat’ Trump ‘Fair and Square’

Republican presidential candidate former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley speaks at a town hall
AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty
Hannah Knudsen

Judges do not need to be making the decisions of the voters, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley told reporters following the Colorado Supreme Court ruling that the U.S. Constitution’s “Insurrection Clause” prohibits former President Donald Trump from appearing on the state ballot.

“I will tell you that I don’t think Donald Trump needs to be president. I think I need to be president. I think that’s good for the country,” Haley said following the news of the Colorado Supreme court’s 4-3 opinion, essentially disqualifying Trump from the ballot in 2024.

RELATED VIDEO — Bolton: CO Disqualification Decision “Incoherent,” SCOTUS “Will Reverse”:

However, Haley does not believe judges should interfere with the election.

“But I will beat him fair and square. We don’t need to have judges making these decisions, we need voters to make these decisions,” she told reporters.

Haley made the remark in reaction to the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling, in which the court “found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three” of the Fourteenth Amendment, per the ruling.

RELATED VIDEO — Luttig: CO Supreme Court Decision Disqualifying Trump “Unassailable”:

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung made it clear that Trump and his team will “swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court and a concurrent request for a stay of this deeply undemocratic decision.”

“We have full confidence that the Supreme Court will quickly rule in our favor and finally put an end to these unAmerican lawsuits,” he said — a sentiment shared by Trump lawyer Alina Habba.

“I’m not even concerned that the Supreme Court will make the right decision here,” she said during a Wednesday appearance on Breitbart News Daily.

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Haley is not alone in dismissing the decision of the judges. Fellow competitor Vivek Ramaswamy went as far as pledging to withdraw from the Colorado state primary.

“Today’s decision is the latest election interference tactic to silence political opponents and swing the election for whatever puppet the Democrats put up this time by depriving Americans of the right to vote for their candidate of choice,” Ramaswamy said in part, adding, “I pledge to *withdraw* from the Colorado GOP primary unless Trump is also allowed to be on the state’s ballot, and I demand that Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, and Nikki Haley to do the same immediately — or else they are tacitly endorsing this illegal maneuver, which will have disastrous consequences for our country”:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis weighed in on the matter as well.

“The Left invokes ‘democracy’ to justify its use of power, even if it means abusing judicial power to remove a candidate from the ballot based on spurious legal grounds,” he wrote.

“SCOTUS should reverse,” the presidential hopeful added:

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