(20 Feb 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Greenville, South Carolina - 20 February 2024
1. Various of Nikki Haley walking on stage for a campaign event
ANNOTATION:
Nikki Haley is not dropping out of the Republican presidential race, but she is ramping up attacks toward Donald Trump before the South Carolina primary.
++WHITE FLASH++
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Nikki Haley, (R) Presidential Candidate:
"That's why I refuse to quit. South Carolina will vote on Saturday, but on Sunday I'll still be running for president. I'm not going anywhere. I'm campaigning every day until the last person votes because I believe in a better America and a brighter future for our kids."
3. Mid of Haley speaking
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Nikki Haley, (R) Presidential Candidate:
"People have a right to have their voices heard and they deserve a real choice, not a Soviet style election where there's only one candidate and he gets 99% of the vote."
5. Mid of Haley speaking
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Nikki Haley, (R) Presidential Candidate:
"It's not normal to spend $50 million in campaign contributions on personal court cases. It's not normal to threaten people who back your opponent. And it's not normal to call on Russia to invade NATO countries. Donald Trump has done all of that and more in just the past month. Look, I've said it many times: I think Donald Trump was the right president at the right time. But times change and so has Trump. He's gotten more unstable and unhinged. He spends more time in courtrooms than he does on the campaign trail. He refuses to debate. He's completely distracted. And everything is about him. He's so obsessed with his own demons from the past he can't focus on delivering a future Americans deserve."
++ENDS ON A SOUNDBITE++
STORYLINE:
There are no wins on the horizon for Nikki Haley.

Those close to the former United Nations ambassador, the last major Republican candidate standing in Donald Trump's path to the GOP's 2024 presidential nomination, are privately bracing for a blowout loss in her home state's primary election in South Carolina on Saturday. And they cannot name a state where she is likely to beat Trump in the coming weeks.

But in an emotional address on Tuesday in Greenville, Haley declared, “I refuse to quit.”

"When the country's future is on the line you don't drop out. You keep fighting. In fact, you fight harder than ever," Haley said.

Haley vowed to stay in the fight against Trump at least until after Super Tuesday’s slate of more than a dozen contests on March 5 — even if she suffers a big loss in her home state Saturday.

In fact, some Republicans are encouraging Haley to stay in the campaign even if she continues to lose — potentially all the way to the Republican National Convention in July in the event the 77-year-old former president, perhaps the most volatile major party front-runner in U.S. history, becomes a convicted felon or stumbles into another major scandal.

As Trump's “Make America Great Again” movement presses for her exit, a defiant Haley on Tuesday repeatedly likened Trump to Democratic President Joe Biden —and both as too old, too divisive and too unpopular to be the only options for voters this fall.


Yet she is leaning into the fight.

"(Trump's) gotten more unstable and unhinged. He spends more time in courtrooms than he does on the campaign trail. He refuses to debate. He's completely distracted. And everything is about him. He's so obsessed with his own demons from the past he can't focus on delivering a future Americans deserve," Haley said.


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