GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley says Donald Trump’s legal cases need to be “dealt with” before the November general election — because he could try to block their prosecution if re-elected.
“I think all of the cases should be dealt with before November,” Haley told NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker in an interview Thursday in Falls Church, Va.
“We need to know what’s going to happen before it, before the presidency happens, because after that, should he become president, I don’t think any of it’s going to get heard,” Haley said.
The former South Carolina governor’s comments came one day after the US Supreme Court agreed to take up the case about whether Trump is immune from prosecution in alleged federal 2020 election interference.
The nation’s top court scheduled oral arguments for the week of April 22, but the decision to hear the case could delay the trial into late summer or fall at the earliest and could stretch into 2025.
If Trump gets re-elected and the trial takes place after he’s back in the White House, he could appoint an attorney general who could dismiss the case against him.
“I just think a president has to live according to the laws, too. You don’t get complete immunity,” Haley said of the Supreme Court agreement to hear the case, arguing that presidents shouldn’t get “free rein to do whatever they want to do.”
Some Haley supporters in South Carolina told The Post before the state’s primary there earlier this week that they hoped she would stay in the race in case Trump gets “locked up.”
Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN, has said that for the good of the party, she is “making sure that we as Republicans do everything we can to win.
“Look, he’s already had three verdicts against him now, over half a billion dollars he’s going to have to pay. All he talks about is these court cases, he’s not talking about the American people. And it’s a problem,” she told Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom” last week.
In her response to GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s decision this week to step down from leadership, Haley told NBC, “I really commend him for realizing that we need a new generational leader. I wish that our presidential candidates would do the same thing.”
She also said Trump and Biden’s showing at the border Thursday was “comical” because both leaders are “responsible” for the migrant crisis.
The 55-year-old said she is “excited” to go into Super Tuesday — the biggest day of the campaign primary season, with voters in 16 states going to the polls — on March 5 and that she’s looking for a “good, competitive showing.”