Takeaways from CNN’s New Hampshire town hall with Nikki Haley

But the onetime South Carolina governor stopped short of saying she needs to defeat former President Donald Trump in the Granite State primary.

“What I want to do is be strong. We won’t know what strong looks like until those numbers come in,” she said.

Haley said her “personal goal is to do better than we did in Iowa,” where she finished in third place, 32 points behind Trump and 2 points behind Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the state’s caucuses on Monday.

Polls, however, show she is much closer to Trump in New Hampshire, where she is expected to benefit from a more moderate Republican primary electorate — with undeclared voters also able to participate in Tuesday’s contest.

Speaking Thursday at New England College in Henniker, New Hampshire, Haley touted surveys that show her outperforming other Republican candidates among the broader electorate in hypothetical face-off against President Joe Biden.

“I want to bring people into the party. Because at the end of the day, we have to heal and unify as Americans,” she said.

Here are takeaways from the CNN town hall, moderated by Jake Tapper:

Haley responds to Trump’s racist dog whistles

Haley was asked about racist dog whistles Trump has employed against her in recent days ahead of the New Hampshire primary.

“I know President Trump well,” Haley said. “That’s what he does when he feels threatened. That’s what he does when he feels insecure.”

Earlier this month, Trump promoted a post that falsely stated that Haley wasn’t eligible to be president because “her parents were not US citizens at the time of her birth.” Haley, who was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, is a natural born citizen and eligible to run.

The baseless claim was reminiscent of the years Trump spent casting doubt on whether former President Barack Obama, who was born in Hawaii, was actually born in the US and demanding he produce his birth certificate.

Trump also referred to the former South Carolina governor as “Nikki ‘Nimrada’ Haley” in a Truth Social post, misspelling her first name Nimarata in a way some viewed as a play on the insult “nimrod.” Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, goes by her middle name Nikki and took her husband’s last name after they married.

Haley on Thursday dismissed the comments as “name-calling” and said she wouldn’t waste energy on it.

“I don’t take these things personally. It doesn’t bother me,” she said. “I’m going to continue to focus on the things that people want to talk about and not get into the name-calling back with him.”

Haley would pardon Trump … under certain conditions

Haley didn’t close the door to pardoning Trump if she were elected president.

She asserted she would not preemptively pardon him, saying that she felt “everything needs to play out.” Haley also strongly suggested she does not believe in the type of blanket immunity Trump has recently argued presidents should have.

But she went on to say that under a scenario in which she was president and Trump was convicted of any of the felony charges he is currently facing, she would consider a pardon.

The former governor explained: “This is no longer about whether he’s innocent or guilty. This is about the fact that ‘How do we bring the country back together?’ And I am determined to make sure all of this division and all of this chaos goes away, and I think a pardon for him would make all of that go away.”

Haley said she felt that would be “healing for the country.”

Trump faces 91 criminal charges across four indictments. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Focusing on foreign policy

Haley leaned hard into her time as Trump’s US ambassador to the United Nations — and at times used her husband, Michael, who is currently deployed to Africa with the South Carolina Army National Guard, as an avatar for her views.

She criticized Biden for failing to take a more aggressive posture toward Iran, saying that Iran is behind both Hamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen.

She also lambasted both Trump and Biden for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. She said that Trump was wrong to suggest negotiating with the Taliban on US soil and that Biden rushed the US withdrawal.

“What was heartbreaking for me was, I watched my husband watch the news that day. And he saw them driving in the Jeeps, and he said, ‘Those are our vehicles.’ … Then he saw them wearing the American uniform and making fun of our American soldiers,” she said. “Think about, from everyone over 20 years that served in Afghanistan, to see the image of that.”

“The level of improvement of the quality of life for the women there … all of that’s gone,” Haley said.

Haley was also asked whether she would end the United States’ long-standing commitment to a two-state solution to address the decades of conflict between Israel and Palestinians.

She argued that “Israel has to defend themselves first” after the October 7 terrorist attack and said she understands Israel’s discomfort with the presence of Hamas.

“Israel is a bright spot in a tough neighborhood. They are the tip of the sphere when it comes to fighting terrorism. It has never been that Israel needs America; it has always been that America needs Israel,” she said.

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