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tonight, governor haley will answer questions directly from new hampshire voters on the issues that will help determine who wins the republican presidential nomination. i might have some questions of my own. in the audience tonight are voters who say they plan to participate in the new hampshire republican primary, both registered republicans and undeclared or independent voters, who are not registered with either major party but are still allowed to participate in the primary elections here in new hampshire. to find tonight's questioners, we cast a wide net, slis itting help from various organizations including universities, business groups, parent group, young professional organizations, religious groups, and conservative organizations. guests of the haley campaign and new england college are in the audience tonight, but they will not be asking questions. we've asked everyone here to be respectful of each other and to

governor haley so that voters in the room, and so that voters at home, you, have a chance to hear from the candidate herself. now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome former governor nikki haley. hello. good to see you again. >> hello. good to see everybody. >> so, governor haley, we're going to get to the audience in just one second. you know me, i'm an annoying journalist. i have to squeeze in a couple of questions of my own. every candidate who won iowa and new hampshire won the nomination. does this race for the republican nomination now come down to what happens here in new hampshire. >> i have said from the beginning we wanted to be strong in iowa. we wanted to be stronger in new hampshire. and we want to get even stronger in my sweet state of south carolina. you named the past and all of the hes. i'm talking about the shes and

how she's going to go forward and finish the race. i think we're going to continue to do what we do. we were strong. we started at 2%. we ended up with almost 20%. that was a goodwin for us. now coming into new hampshire, we want to go in even stronger. i think we've got great momentum in new hampshire, but we're not going to stop until we get to the last vote. >> governor sanu new is predicting a win for you in new hampshire. but he's saying a strong second place finish would be great. >> what i want to do is be strong. we're not going to know what strong looks like until those numbers come in. you guys will all say whether it's strong or not. we want to do better than we did in iowa. that's my personal goal is to make sure we do better than iowa. >> our first question comes from benjamin, an undeclared voter who voted for joe biden in 2020, but said he is currently supporting you. benjamin? >> hi, benjamin.

>> hi, governor. thank you so much for being here tonight. why won't trump debate you, and what would you say to him if he did? >> what we've seen is he does tend to throw a temper tantrum when there's not a reason for he to respond back to it. i would love for him to debate. that's what i've said the whole time. i think it's good for voters to be able to see what their options are. this is the similarities you're seeing with trump or biden. neither one of them will debate their opponents. i think it's telling that we're dealing with more of the same. more of the same where you've got these incumbent presidents that think they don't have to show you the differences between them and their opponent. i think that's the problem. i think that's exactly why we need new generational leaders. this election is very much going to be, are we getting more of the same, or do we want to go in a new direction? 70% of americans have said they don't want a rematch between trump and biden. the majority of americans have very low -- have very high disapproval numbers for both trump and biden. trump and biden both spent

trillions of dollars that put us in debt that our kids are never going to forgive either one of them. you look at the fact that we want to get them focused. but right now do we really want to have two 80 year olds running for president, when we've got a country in disarray and a world on fire? and you look at the fact that they are so distracted by their own investigations and by their own grievances that when i think about my kids, i want a president who's going to be focused on what we need to do to fix the economy, what we need to do to secure the border once and for all, what we need to do to make sure we get our kids reading again and going back to the basics in education, what we need to do to make sure our country is safe. those are things. we don't need people who are distracted. we need people who love america and realize, if your time is gone, move away and let a new generational leader come in and fix things. >> trump has waged particularly personal attacks at you. he promoted the idea because

your parents were not u.s. citizens when you were born -- they're immigrants from india -- you're not eligible to be president. to be clear, that's not true. you are eligible. and he's also highlighted your given first raid, anymore rah da, which he misspelled. you've gone by nikki your whole life. it's your middle name. >> i'm the proud daughter of bamberg, south carolina. that's the first question. we can throw that out the window. the name calling, i know president trump well. that's what he does when he feels threatened. that's what he does when he feels insecure. i don't take these things personally. it doesn't bother me. i know him very well, and this is what he does. i know i am a threat. i know that's why he's doing that. so, it's not going to waste any energy from me. i'm going to continue to focus on the things that people want to talk about and not getting into the name calling back with him. >> i want you to meet -- okay. i want you to meet lindsey. she does administrative work in

the government. she's a republican from lee, new hampshire. she says she's undecided in the republican primary. >> as a christian, assisting those in need is a priority. however, it is concerning to see american citizens struggling with basic needs, while our taxes are directed towards non-contributors to the economy. how would you remain americans' trust as president, when they face high grocery, gas, and housing prices? >> ait's a great question. it's why i think we need to have an accountant in the white house. you look at the fact we're $34 trillion in debt. we're having to borrow money just to make our interest payments. china owns some of that debt. but when you look at what the average american is having to go through, it's not just at the grocery store. it's not just at the gas station. mortgage payments have gone up. insurance payments have gone up. everything that we have to spend, it's all gone up. and so americans are feeling that squeeze. and so what we have to do is first of all acknowledge the

fact that republicans and democrats both did this to us. there are no saints in d.c. when it comes to spending. so, what we have to make sure we do is we stop the spending, stop the borrowing, eliminate the pet projects and earmarks that they opened pack up, and i'll veto any spending bill that doesn't take us back to pre-covid levels. the second thing ept to do is take as many federal programs as we can and send them down to the states. that will reduce the size of the federal government, but it will empower people on the ground. if all of those resources were down on the ground. and then we want to open up the middle class. we want to make sure we eliminate the federal gas and diesel tax in this country. let's cut taxes on the middle class and simplify the brackets. and let's make small business tax cuts permanent. they made corporate tax cuts permanent, but they made small business tax cuts temporary. small businesses are the heart beat of our economy. we need to start acting like it. and then we'll focus on the

actual spending of each agency. government was intended to secure the rights and freedoms of the people. it was never intended to be all things to all people. and these agencies are way too bloated. what i will tell you is americans are tired of working for government. it is now time that government starts serving the footbpeople . that will happen when we get our fiscal house back in order. and that will be a priority from the very beginning when i first get into office. >> on the topic that lindsey raised about assisting those in need. there's a bipartisan group of lawmakers trying to expand -- your political group for america called the previous version of the child tax credit, which helped cut child poverty in half. they called it no strings attached welfare handouts. are you against expanding child tax credits. >> i'm for child care tax credits for everyone. if you're going to do it, do it across the board and make sure it's fair. when you look at the welfare system and all those other things, when you look at those

programs, the goal that i want to look at is what are we doing to lift them up? what are we doing to make life better for them? so i'll give you an example. when i was governor in south carolina, we had thousands of people on welfare. and what we did was i went and took those people that were on welfare, which in a lot of cases was generational welfare, and i matched them up with businesses. and i told businesses, if you will take this person and train them, i will pay for them for x number of weeks. and at the end of it, you decide if you want to hire them or not. we moved 35,000 people from welfare to work. we had family parties so that we could celebrate the fact that they were now contributing members of society. don't just give handouts. what are you doing to lift them up too? and if you're going to do tax credits, do it for everybody. don't play favorites. don't pick winners and losers. that's not what we do in america. what we do is we focus on making sure that people aren't dependent on government but that we're doing the part that we

need to do. i'll give you one more. when we had our prison systems, i wanted to know how we could lower the recidivism rate in the country. we reformed the entire prison system to make sure they were doing quality classes in prison. now in south carolina, we also put equipment behind the fence so they learned a skill. now in south carolina, when someone leaves the fence, they've got a job to go to the next day. we is are the lowest recidivism rate in the country. when you lift up the least of things, that's when you're doing sustainable products. when you just throw out a tax credit and say we're going to give it to these people, that's harming them. instead, let's do the hard work to say, what can we do to get them in a better situation? >> a student at new england college, he's a republican who says he's currently undecided. lucas? >> hi, lucas. >> hi. i grew up in philadelphia and have seen my city go in a bad direction, with drugs running rampant through the streets and

criminals feeling like they can do anything they want, not only in philadelphia but other great cities like new york city and chicago. what will you do to stop this and return these places to their former glory? >> it's true, and my son goes to school not far from there. and i worry every time he goes into the city. the first thing we need to do is we have got to defund sanctuary cities. you can't have safe havens for all of this lawlessness attacking. it's not just illegal immigrants. it creates lawlessness throughout the city. the second thing is, our law enforcement is demotralized, no just because you had this defund the police situation, but because they go and sacrifice their lives to keep us all safe. and do you know how frustrating it is for them to arrest someone who committed a crime and have them just let back out of jail the very next day? we need to make prosecutors prosecute according to the crime. you have to hold people accountable. until they start to pay a price for committing a crime, they're

going to continue to do it. and in the meantime, that way we can start to get stolen guns off the street. we can start to get drug dealers off the street. we can start to clean up our cities because people will know they're not going to get away with it anymore. that is happening throughout our country. i was in california several months back, and it was shocking. if you went into a drugstore, you had a security officer there. but people were literally just throwing things in a bag and walking out because they knew there was no price to pay. we are a country of laws. the second we stop being a country of laws, we give up everything this country was founded on. we've got to get back to where we were. >> on the manner of illegal narcotics, i want to ask you, marijuana is currently classified in the top category of the most dangerous drugs in the country, alongside heroin and lsd. scientists at the fda said marijuana should be moved to a much lower risk classification. would you support that? >> i think i'll go with the scientists on that. it's obviously not in the same

class as heroine. i think when you're looking at the legalization of this, i want states to decide that. that's something that should be as close to the people as possible. some states want nothing to do with t it. i think that should be more of a state decision on whether they legalize it or not. >> a college student originally from new jersey, undeclared voter who is currently undecided between you and ron desantis. >> hi, governor haley. as a college student and a young american, a key priority of mine in this election is the free expression of ideas and bridging the political divide in this country. you have campaigned on being a president for all americans. now, it seems that in the past two decades, as college campuses have become increasingly left leaning, republicans were the voice of centering the dialogue and inviting disagreement. i'm concerned, however, by the rhetoric that's come from republicans like yourself since october 7th, that we should vet and shut down ideas that we deem

harmful. you floated the idea of social media companies verifying all users by name. and one of your opponents, governor desantis, has sanctioned pro-palestine student groups on public university campuses in the state of florida. so, my question is, will you commit to being principled on free speech, meaning supporting even that speech that you disagree with? and if yes, what's your plan to do na? >> so, i will always fight for freedom of speech. what i was referring to when it comes to our tech companies is there is a responsibility that our social media companies have. what i think they should do is they should show us their algorithms. they should be completely transparent so you know why they push what they push, why you see what you see, all of that. that's a business transparency situation. when it comes to disclosing who you are, i'm not saying that americans have to disclose their name. what i'm saying is you have millions of foreign bots where

there are no people behind them. when i was at the united nations, russia, china, and iran knew and said it was the cheapest form of warfare. there are millions of bots that are spreading disinformation, that are sowing division in our country, and they're doing this to spread harmful things to our younger teenagers. and what i'm saying is those social media companies have to do something with the foreign bots. i will always fight for americans' freedom of speech. but i am not going to fight for russians and iranians and chinese freedom of speech. that's what's happening. that's what we have to take care. as a mom, do i wish everybody would put their name next to their comment? i think it would be great. i think it would be more civil. i think we would have less of the child pornography. i think we would have less of the other things. i'm not going to say government should make anybody do anything. what i do think is this is a national security risk when tech companies know there are millions of foreign bots and they're doing absolutely nothing about it.

it's another reason why i think we have to ban tiktok. india banned tiktok because it was causing so much social disruption. nepal did the same thing. why are we continuing to have a social media platform that is controlled by the chinese communist party, that we know is doing harmful things to us, like putting osama bin laden's letter up there and all those things. that's what i don't want. i want you to have as much freedom of speech as possible. i do not want those that hate us to be able to have freedom of speech and cause division in this country. >> i want to bring in doug house, founder of financial planning firm. he's a republican who says he supports you. doug? >> hi, doug. >> thank you for being here and a sincere thank you for the effort and time you put into our state. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> your campaign has brought in some meaningful contributions from some rather wealthy democrat support. and many of us are anticipating that next tuesday you're going

to perform very well here in new hampshire. however, some of that may be fuelled by democratic voters who are participating in our primary. my question for you is, how does that help or hurt us, especially if these voters revert back to party lines? >> well, first of all, i will tell you, we have always -- we've been here for 11 months. we've had over 75, 80 town halls, answering every question, shaking every hand on the last person to lead. i don't ask people when they come in the door if they're republican, democrat, r oindependent. i tell them what i think we need to do with our country, the direction we need to go, and how we go about that. i know that we have -- right now, we have general john boldic support. he's been a pro-trumper for a long time. he's a hard core conservative. he's with us. we have governor chris sununu. he's a moderate republican. he's with us. we've had some independents come our way. and yes, we've had democrats say

they want to support us because they're not happy with joe biden. what i want everybody here to remember is republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president. that is nothing to be proud of. we should want to win the majority of americas. the problem is if you're going to win the majority of americans, you have to make sure, as a leader, you don't decide who's good and who's bad, who's right and who's wrong. you bring out the best of people and get them to move forward. what i am doing is telling people what i'm for. if independents and conservative and moderate republicans like that, i love that. if conservative democrats are saying, i want to come back home to the republican party because they left it, i want them back. we're not trying to target progressives. they're never going to be for me. i know that we have differences. but what i will do is i want the younger voter. i want those moderates. i want those independents. i want them to come back home to the republican party because that's how we win. and that is why, if you look at

any general election poll, trump and biden are even. on a good day, trump will be up by two points. i defeat biden by 17 points in "the wall street journal" poll. when you do that, that's a double digit win that takes to d.c. that's a mandate to get the wasteful spending under control and get our economy back on track. that's a mandate to get our kids reading again and go back to the basics on education. that's a mandate to secure our border with no more excuses. that's a mandate for law and order back in our country. and that's a mandate for a strong america we can be proud of. let's remember, it's a problem i've had with the republican party. they want to push people out of the party. i want to bring people into the party. because at the end of the day, we have to heal and unify as americans if we are going to go and get this country out of disarray and if we're going to make sure we have a strong america going forward. >> so, donald trump is not willing to debate you, but he is very much the elephant in the room.

and i want to ask you about something he posted on his social media at 1:59 a.m. this morning on truth social, continuing his assertion that he should have blanket immunity for anything he did as president, including the events surrounding january 6, 2021. he wrote, quote, in all caps, just in case -- >> of course. >> yes. he wrote, quote, even events that cross tlhe line must fall under total immunity. unquote. what are your thoughts on that? >> no. i mean, it should be common sense, right? common sense. obviously if a president is doing something and it's related to whether it's terrorist threats or something like that and people die, that's one thing. but do you get just total freedom to do whatever you want? no. that's never the way it was intended to be. there needs to be accountability. no one is above the law. but i'm not a lawyer, so i don't know what the limits are. but i think we should be using common sense when it comes to that. >> on accountability, if you become president and donald trump's trials are still

ongoing, would you preemptively pardon him without waiting for a conviction, the way that gerald ford did for richard nixon? >> no. i think everything needs to play out. i think it's important that happens. and i honestly think president trump would want that to happen. if he wants to defend himself and prove he has been treated the wrong way or whether it's political, i think he would want to fight for that. you only want to talk about a pardon after someone has been convicted. so, i would assume we'll let that play out. >> if he were convicted, would you then pardon him? >> i said i would pardon him with the simple reason of, you know, when you talk about a pardon, someone's already been found guilty. for me, the last thing we need is an 80-year-old president sitting in jail because that's just going to further divide our country. this is no longer about whether he's innocent or guilty. this is about the fact, how do we bring the country back together? and i am determined to make sure all of this division, all of this chaos, goes away. and i think a pardon for him would make all of that go away.

and i think it would be healing for the country. >> we'll be right back with more from republican presidential candidate governor nikki haley. stay with us.

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♪ welcome back to cnn's republican presidential town hall. we're live from new hampshire with former south carolina governor nikki haley. couple of questions that i need to ask about your family if i can. your father was hospitalized, and you took a quick break from the campaign trail this week to visit him. how is he doing? >> thank you for asking. he is doing well. he is now back home. i -- michael and i take care of my parents th. they live with us. so, when something like that happens, i need to put eyes on them. make sure they're okay. they are watching tonight -- i love you mom and dad -- and he's doing much better. >> that's great. and speaking of your husband, michael, he's in the military, and he's currently deployed. he's in the horn of africa. you said you weren't able to connect to him the day of iowa

caucuses. i assume you've been able to since, i hope. how's he doing? >> it was probably about two or three days that he had no connection. so, that's always tough because you're, kind of, holding your breath and you can't -- but i have since. yes, we got a chance to talk. all is good on his front. when you have a loved one deployed, it's that long prayer that they come back to you safely. we're incredibly proud of him and his military brothers and sisters that are serving and god bless them for what they do. >> one of our team members backstage, her son just got back from iraq. >> god bless. they go through a lot. it's the reason why you have to remember, we can't just love our men and women when they're gone. we've got to love them when they get back too. you've got to love them for the long haul because sometimes they come back and times are tough. >> absolutely. i want you to meet scott towns. he's from ware, new hampshire.

he voted for joe biden is 2020, but he says he's currently supporting you. scott? >> good to see you. >> good to see you, too, governor haley. how would did you sh without expanding the middle east? >> so, again, the frustration that i have with why we're in this situation is all of this could have been prevented. and what we saw is after the debacle in afghanistan, all of our enemies felt empowered. and keep in mind, there would be no houthis without iran. there wouldn't be hamas without iran. there wouldn't be hezbollah without iran. and what truly fuelled iran was when biden fell all over himself to get back into the iran deal, when he lifted the sanctions on iran. it was the most dangerous thing he could have done. when he lifted the terrorist label off the houthis, again, that was another thing he never should have done. what we know about iran and all of their proxies is when they

get cash, it doesn't go to take care of the iranian people. it goes to fuel terrorism. and that's what's happened. now we have that area of the red sea, that's a dramatic part of our global supply chain. so, now that they have started causing trouble there, you know, what we're seeing biden do is now he's like, huh-uh, we're going to go put the terrorist designation back on them. now even if you put the sanctions back on iran, it's going to take a while to do that. so, our goal should always be, how do you prevent war? that's the number one thing. how do you prevent war? and the best way you prevent war is to deter it in the first place. that doesn't mean putting your head in the sand. it actually means showing strength. so, when iran started shooting at our men and women in iraq and syria, why did it take 130 times for biden to do something about it? if he had hit hard one time where all of the supplies were of the missiles that were going to shoot at them, he had done that once, they would have backed off. we've seen this with iran over

and over again. reagan did this. trump did this. when you go and you punch them hard, whether it's where those depots are that it's happening or whether you go after the iranian regime's military commanders, that is what they respond to. now we've got to go back and find our strength again. that's the one thing i'll tell you is when i was at the united nations, i told what america was for and what america was against. i didn't care if they didn't like me, but i wanted them to respect america. we've lost that respect. we've got to get it back again. >> i want to ask you, you mentioned the tragic withdrawal of u.s. forces from afghanistan. and i wanted to ask you a follow on that because i've seen criticism of that withdrawal that faulted both the biden administration for how it was done and also the trump administration for negotiating the agreement to leave to begin with. and we all remember president trump wanting to bring the taliban to camp david, i think it was near the anniversary of

9/11 and the rest. you worked for donald trump around the time, so i'm sure your criticisms were internal, not external. >> i wasn't there around the time that happened. >> but tell me what you thought about the deal he ultimately negotiated with the taliban that then the biden administration inherited -- i'm not trying to exempt them from withdrawal. but trump played a role here too. what do you think of that? >> i think there's a little bit of fault to go around to all sides. the first thing is i think that, you know, this pressure by the american public to get out of wars was important. we had been in afghanistan way too long. i mean, my husband served in afghanistan. they will tell you, you can't go and recreate a culture. you can't go and build a new country. you should never try and turn a country into something it's not. i think that was a terrible mistake. what we should be doing is always just making sure we're protecting americans. so, afghanistan went too far. but when you know you want to pull back, you do it in a way

that's smart and sensible. and i think, you know, what trump did, we never want to see taliban on u.s. soil ever. no agreement, no anything. i don't want them at camp david, anywhere. i think it was a mistake to even try and negotiate with the taliban because this is a group that you can't negotiate with. biden wanted to play politics and hid it by a certain day. he want to do it by september 11th. so, he rushed. and i know what happened then because i was in the same room when trump wanted to do that. and we were sitting in the national security council. and when that happened, his general said to him, if you want to get out of afghanistan, you can do it, but you've got to send 5,000 more troops over there to do it the right way. and what happened is biden didn't want to do it the right way. and look at what happened. i mean, if you look at the cash that they left, the equipment that they left -- what was heartbreaking for me is i watched my husband watch the

news that day, and he saw them driving in the jeeps. and he goes, those are our vehicles. and then he saw them and they were waving, like, flags and all those things, so you're already feeling demoralized. then he saw them wearing the american uniforms and making fun of our american soldiers. like -- i mean, think about from everyone over 20 years that served in afghanistan, to see the image of that. and for me, i went to afghanistan while i was at the united nations. the level of improvement of the quality of life for the women there was -- you had women working for the first time. you had them where they didn't have to be draped. you had them to where they could actually go to school. all of that's gone. for what? to hit a political deadline? that's what we have to stop. it's not about theatrics at camp david. it's not about a political deadline with trump or biden. what's about doing it is are you

keeping americans safe and are you looking at the best interests of our national security? and that didn't happen from either side. >> i want you to meet william streeter, a college student and a republican who's volunteered with governor desantis' super pac, says he's currently leaning toward either desantis or trump. william? >> hi, william. >> what would be your response between the rising tensions between china and taiwan after the recent taiwanese election? >> so, great win for the taiwanese election. it was a win for freedom. it was a win for democracy. and it happened really on the heels of china doing incredible amounts of intimidation with drone tactics, with trying to spread misinformation. so, it really was a win for tree dom and democracy. a setback for china for sure. but what we have to remember is -- and i saw this every day at the united nations -- dictators, terrorists, and thugs always tell us what they're going to do. they're amazingly transparent.

hamas said they were going to go into israel. they did. china said they were going to take hong kong. it happened over covid. russia said they were going to invade ukraine. we watched it. china says taiwan is next. we better believe them. russia said once they take ukraine, poland and the baltics are next. those are nato countries, and that puts america at war. what we know is first of all, i don't think that we should ever give cash to any country, friend or foe, because you can't follow it. you can't hold it accountable. really important. the second thing is we don't need to put troops on the ground anywhere. as the spouse of a military combat veteran, you don't ever want to see your loved ones go to war. what you do have to do is deter it. there is a reason the taiwanese want the u.s. and the west to support ukraine. they know if ukraine wins, china won't invade taiwan. there's a reason that ukrainians want the u.s. and the west to support israel, because they know if iran wins, russia wins.

iran, russia, and china are connected in an unholy alliance and connected in their hatred for freedom, democracy, and of all things, the united states of america. so, we need to look at all three of them together. don't ever separate the three of them because they are working together. we need to look at them the way they look at us. and when we start to do it from a level of prevention of war, of national security, and of protection of americans, that's when america will be strong again. >> you brought up israel, governor. saudi arabia wants israel to commit to a path to a palestinian state in exchange for normalized relations with saudi arabia. earlier today, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu appeared to reject the establishment of any palestinian state while he is prime minister. would a president haley end the long standing commitment to a two-state solution? >> when i was at the u.n., the

two-state solution came up over and over again. and israel always showed up at the table. the palestinians always rejected the two-state solution. and the reason they rehl jekted the two-state solution is because they want a one-state solution. the palestinians don't want israel to exist. we saw that over and over again. any discussions we have with them, the palestinian authority doesn't want to negotiate with israel. so, all the heat always goes to israel. and people always forgive the fact that the palestinians are saying no at every breath. israel is a bright spot in a tough neighborhood. they are the tip of the sphere when it comes to defeating terrorism. it has never been that israel needs america. it has always been that america needs israel. and what we have to remember is on that horrific day of october 7th, when they beheaded those people and burned those babies alive and took those girls from the concert and raped them and

dragged their naked bodies through the streets of gaza, what did they say? death to israel, death to america. that's what we have to remember. so, when the palestinians demand anything, israel has every right to demand security. israel has every right to say, we don't want terrorists on our border. so, will there ever be a two-state solution? maybe. but israel has to defend themselves first. and as long as there are terrorists off of their border, i totally understand why they don't trust the palestinian authority and why they know they have to protect their people. >> i want you to meet -- i want you to meet elizabeth mclaughlin, retiree from marlboro, new hampshire. she's a republican who says she's currently undecided. >> good evening, governor haley. welcome to my alma mater. >> thank you. >> congressional term limits have been asked for by the people of this country. are you a candidate that will

bring forth term limit legislation of the house and senate? and what would that legislation look like? >> absolutely. i mean, i have been a term limit proponent for as long as i can remember. the reality, though, i've always spoken in hard truths. the reality is congress is never going to vote for term limits, right? but that doesn't mean we don't try. what we do instead and what you will see me do is i will have a haley term limits pledge. and everyone, when they file for office, incumbent or otherwise, has the option to either sign the term limit pledge or not. and then i'm going to put all of that out for you so that you know exactly which candidates are for it and which candidates are not. and that way you are empowered with the information. and when we get enough of those individuals to sign the term limits pledge that get into congress, then we will go and say it's time to vote on it and hold them to account on that. so, we'll do it from the outside-in. i always think the best way to

move reforms forward is when you work with the people to push it from the outside-in and force congress to do the right thing. >> we'll be right back with more from republican presidential candidate nikki haley.

this election is a choice between results or just rhetoric. californians deserve a senator who is going to deliver for them every day and not just talk a good game. adam schiff. he held a dangerous president accountable. he also helped lower drug costs, bring good jobs back home, and build affordable housing. now he's running for the senate. our economy, our democracy, our planet. this is why we fight. i'm adam schiff, and i approve this message.

♪ welcome back to cnn's republican presidential town hall. we're live i n new hampshire at new england college, with former south carolina governor nikki haley. i want to ask you about a comment you made earlier this week. you said that america has, quote, never been a racist country, unquote. protections for the institution of slavery were written into the u.s. constitution. the white house was built with slave labor. your home state of south carolina seceded from the union. i understand you don't think america is a racist country now. but we're here at a college. do you really think as a historical matter, america has never been a racist country? >> i mean, think about what you're -- first of all, i will tell you, when you look at, you know, the declaration of independence, it was that, you know, men are created equal, with unalienable rights, right? that was what we all knew. but what i look at it as is i

was a brown girl that grew up in a small, rural town. we had plenty of racism that we had to deal with. but my parents never said we lived in a racist country. and i'm so thankful they didn't because for every brown and black child out there, if you tell them they live or born in a racist country, you're immediately telling them they don't have a chance. and my parents would always say, you may have challenges, and yes, there will be people who are racist, but that doesn't define what you can do in this country. so, i think it's important that we tell all kids that, look, america is notot perfect. we have our stains. we know that. but our goal should always be to make today better than yesterday. it's hugely important. and that's the problem i have. we have too many people with this national self-loathing. it is killing our country. we have got to go back to loving america. we are blessed because that little brown girl in that small

rural town in south carolina, she grew up to be the first female minority governor in history. she then went on to be u.n. ambassador, and now she's running for president of the united states. i want every brown and black child to see that and say, no, i don't live in a country that was formed on racism. i live in a country where they wanted all people to be equal and to make sure they had life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. >> okay, but just to -- just to push back a bit because i was a history major in new hampshire. you're talking about the ideals of america, but america was founded institutionally on many racist precipes, including slavery. >> when you look at, all men are created equal, i think the intent -- the intent -- was to do the right thing. did ey go fix it along the way? yes. but i don't think the intent was ever that we were going to be a racist country. the intent was, everybody was

going to be created equally. and as we went through time, they fixed the things that were not, all men are created equal. they made sure women became equal too. all of these things happen over time. but i refuse to believe that the premise of when they formed our country was based on the fact that it was a racist country to start with. i refuse to believe that. i have to know in my heart and in everybody's heart that we live in the best country in the world and we are a work in progress. and we've got a long way to go to fix all of our little kinks. but i truly believe our founding fathers had the best of intentions when they started. and we fixed it along the way. and we should always look at it that way. >> i want you to meet steven. he's a sales associate from concord, new hampshire. he's an undeclared voter. he plans to vote in the republican primary, and he's currently undecided. steven? >> hi, steven.

>> hi, ambassador haley. hi, jake. and to quote another member, welcome to my alma mater. ambassador haley, what is your plan to deal with the loss of jobs that are being replaced by a.i.? >> it's interesting because when you look at artificial intelligence, don't look at it as good or bad. see it as opportunities but also see it as a warning. when you look at artificial intelligence, a lot of good could come from it. innovations, whether it's in health care, whether it's in education, whether it's in, you know, creating what the next new industry's going to be. there's a lot of great things that can come out. but there are some warning signs that if we don't deal with it the right way, it could be incredibly dangerous. so, to me, the first thing is let's look at the security perspective. i don't think you regulate a.i. i am not a fan of government regulating anything. i think they tend to break more than they fix. i do think we need to put laws in place to protect americans, laws that say, if you use a.i. to steal a person's identity, that's against the law.

if you use a.i. in a harmful way in health care, that's against the law. if you use a.i. to do a military act without a general commander, that's a -- you're breaking the law. if you use a.i. to affect -- to disable the democratic process. let's put hard laws in place to protect americans. but the other side of it is, let's see artificial intelligence for the opportunity that it is. when you create a platform like that, it always creates more jobs along the way. our goal should be, how do we make sure those people have the skills to fit those new jobs? you know, in south carolina, when i came in, we had 11% unemployment. all of the jobs in south carolina had been in the textile industry. and when the textiles went overseas, so went our jobs. so, we started to recruit. and by the time i left, we were building planes with boeing, more bmws than any place in the world. we brought in mercedes-benz,

volvo, five international tire companies. but our south carolinians knew how to make textiles. we went and got them that is the key, don't leave anybody hanging. anybody that has had a job, they are watching it go way about artificial intelligence, let's make sure that they have ability to get trained for new jobs coming in. that's how you make sure that you are lifting them u p along the way and empowering them to go forward. we don't lick anybody behind, we put opportunities in front of everybody so they can see a way forward. >> i want you to see isaiah manning, he foundeded a coalition, he is a of republican saying he is leaning toward supporting you. >> thank you for being with us, governor. in the first debate you are the only candidate acknowledge the reality of climate change. he also pointed out the significance of emissions from countries like china and india. how is your administration help

reduce emissions and priorities like american dominance support that? >> i think this has been made to be a partisan issue. and it shouldn't be. without knowing where any of houston, we all want clean air. we all want clean water. we all want the world for our kids that we know is going to be strong and healthy for them. so if you look at that, how do we get there? i do say climate change is real, we have to acknowledge our fax to know where we go. the problem is, we have seen extremes, we have seen people who sasay climate change do not exist and we see others who say, like biden, we have to have as many electric cars, everybody has to drive electric car by 2023, you don't live in extremes. instead, yes, we acknowledge china and india are massiv e when it comes to that and we need to call them out on it. we also look at what is the transition.

rather than demonizing producers, partner with the producers, you find that a lot of energy producers want to do innovation. we see nuclear fusion happening now, there's real opportunities there to go and look at that and when you go partner with them, that's when it happens. you look at what biden did and bypassing all of that stimulus money to go get everybody into an electric car, what did he do? it did not even make sense. we don't even have the infrastructure. everybody want to electric car. i did i'm not talking about charging stations, electric vehicles are heavy. our roads and ridges would not be able to handle electric cars like that. not only that. americans don't all want electric cars, quit you die sta love for you to, that's a what i want to happen. let's do it in a way that ansit we never stop trying to - - we

don't do it in a way that misses the whole point. that 70s% of the batteries and electric cars were made in china which is are not number one threat. there's no logic in how he did that. >> we will be back for more with nikki haley. stay with us.

this election is a choice between results or just rhetoric. californians deserve a senator who is going to deliver for them every day and not just talk a good game. adam schiff. he held a dangerous president accountable. he also helped lower drug costs, bring good jobs back home, and build affordable housing. now he's running for the senate. our economy, our democracy, our planet. this is why we fight. i'm adam schiff, and i approve this message.

>> welcome back to see an and town hall. live from new hampshire with former governor, nikki haley. you said, this is a silly a question, what you said one of your models is joan jett. >> i love rock 'n roll, they all know what that is. >> i was referring to you when i said college kids in the audience. sorry. i'm older than her. joan jett was a huge rock star. what is it about her that you admire, why? >> what i love about her is

here she was, she was one of the first rockers, true rockers. the industry did not like the way she looked. did not like the way she acted. did not look at the talent. they automatically pushed her aside for things that were just who she was. and she never gave up. and she kept pushing and she kept pushing no matter how much they discounted her made it like she was never going to make it. to the point that they were selling albums out of the trunk of her car. and finally, when the record company would sign her, she and her agent came out with their own record label and that was the one that had the songs like , i love rock 'n roll, crimson and clover, all the sons came out because of it. and when she got into the rock 'n roll hall of fame, what a lesson that is. that don't let people, people will discount you all your life.

the fact that she persisted the fact that she continued to go forward and the fact that she just was at bad , i love every bit of that, i do. >> that's a great lessons for all the college kids. i want you to meet a former new hampshire legislature and former consultant, a republican from manchester, he said he is currently undecided. >> first let me say i'm glad your father is doing well. >> thank you for saying that. i appreciate it. >> you have an ad that says, i'll tell you, joe biden is too old. even thisyankee says that's rude. so is that the kind of image that you or a presidential candidate should project rather than issues? >> you know what i am always going to do is tell - - >> remember the age median of

the state before you answer that question [ laughter ]. >> no. you know i have always spoken in hard truth. because i think americans deserve the truth. i always want the truth and i think they want it. i don't sugarcoat things because i don't think we have time for that. i have said, both biden and trump would mean that our actions would give us an 80- year-old president. we have a country in disarray and a world on fire. i have technology what everybody else is thinking and they are just not saying it. i am going to say it because our families are on the line. we need someone who is going to be at the top of their game. we need someone who is going to be, these are people who making decisions on national security, making decisions on the future of our economy. we need to be honest with ourselves, congress is becoming one of the most privileged nursing homes in the country. and you ask any of our young

college students, they don't want that. i don't want that for my kids. i had i appreciate anybody that goes in for service, but the problem is, joe biden refuses to leave and all of these people who are in their 80s, they need to know for the good of our country know when to walk away. you can look at two joe biden from two years ago and you look at him now, i worry about how russia season, how china season, how iran sees them, every one of them see what we see and if no one else will say it, i am going to say it. we don't need to have our options be to 80-year-olds, we need to have a new generational leader, thus not being disrespectful, i'm from the south, that is speaking that hard truth. >> one of those elderly gentleman that you referred to is in a different channel and i'd did want to give you an opportunity to rebut something he said, you said you have no

chance, no hope, margot will not be with you. your response. >> i think if he thinks i have no chance and i have no hope then why is he running millions of dollars of ads against me, if you think i'm no chance and hope, with wife when i served in his cabinet he said that i am tough and best ambassador he ever had and no one could even move in. he gave me all this praise until i decided to run against him. this is not personal for me. i don't hate donald trump. i voted for him twice. i agree with a lot of his policies. but rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. and everybody knows i'm right. and we can continue down this path and go to to more years four more years of chaos. you don't fix democrat chaos with republican chaos. he could say everything he wants and that i don't have a chance, he would not say it if he thought that that was true. the reason he is throwing these

temper tantrums is because he knows i do have a chance. the reason he's doing this is because he knows he's not able to defend his re he is not able to talk about why he was not tough enough on china when he should have been allowed sentinel to come through and still our intellectual property and build up our military. he's not talking about the fact that he put us $1 trillion in debt over four years and we're digging out of it and able to figure out how we're going to pay that now. he's not talking about the fact that he did not stop the fentanyl flow that affected this state and over the country when he had the opportunity to do it. he's not talking about why did he go and praise president xi a dozen times after they gave us covid. why would you do that? there were a lot of things he does not want to answer so you can say i am not going to it, i don't care about that. we need answers. the american people need answers and if he's not giving it, that should worry every single one of you. >> i want you to meet claire

she's from concord, new hampshire, hr direct are here at new england college, undeclared voter undecided in the primary. >> nice to see you. >> nice to see you, thank you for being here. i'm brand-new u.s. citizen. although i have been here in the united states for 23 years and have been in my hometown 48. the problem i see that does concern me is homelessness. i understand my town does a lot to combat the issue and i understand local responsibilities and really good work going on, i would like to understand what you would do to tackle the issue if you would be president. >> we are seeing homelessness is up 12 percent. we now have 650,000 americans who are homeless. 35,000 of them are veterans who are homeless. it's shameful. this is not their fault. it's the fact that inflation is

up, we're seeing a lot of families get squeezed and the fact that america refuses to deal with the cancer that's mental health. america refuses to deal with addiction which we have to do with an there are answers to this and this is why i want to move as many programs from the government down to the states because right now a lot of it is tied up in dc. you have over $300 billion spent on things like mental health behavioral services in dc. only 1 billion of it gets down to the states for states to decide how to use it. let's release those resources so that every state can do what they need to to get the mental health therapist they need to have to have the mental health facilities we need to have in our state. to have the addiction centers. he doesn't need to be tied up with dc bureaucrats, it needs to be on the ground where we can lift people up because we are losing so many americans.

the mental health issues, to fentanyl issues, the economy, we can get them back on track but we have to get them well first and then we get them trained like what i said we did with our welfare was based in, what we did with the prison inmates, we get them trained and we need to start ringing resources because what we're saying is federal government is assuming that one size fits all for all the states and that's not true. i would much rather have those resources go to governors system sununu and this is where we need and we need this addiction center and that's what i want to do. presidents typically meet with governors once a year. i will meet with our governors was a quarter, republican and democrat with the sole purpose of when we move those programs down, showing them the best ways they can go about serving their people so they they are more empowered by that process. >> i want you to meet marie, a retiree who works in public health, undeclared, she's planning on voting for you in the primary. >> thank you. >> thank you, governor and

thank you for taking the time to visit and get us to see as many voters. my question is in that regard. with all the townhalls, the debates and conversations with individuals, can you share a little of how that experience has refined or shaped any of your policies? >> i was like this as a governor and ambassador. i really love to be out with people. because no fence, jake, the media is not real life. [ laughter ] but you go to a town hall, they will tell you everything. i will give you an example. i had this woman come up to me and before she came up to me, she was crying so i knew something was wrong and she came up to me and she said, i saw you last week at x town. and she said this is a picture. she showed me a picture and she

was in the audience and she had her self circle. and i said oh, how nice, and she said at the moment i was sitting in that town hall, my son died of fentanyl. and she said, i need to know that that was, that meant something. i need to know that me, being there, it's okay. you don't forget things like that. that sits with you in a way that nothing else can. talking to that person, talking to a veteran that comes and says, everything you're saying about how veterans need telehealth and mental health care or a veteran's military spouse, when you hear those things, it makes it very real. what i found out in new hampshire, is we don't talk enough about the northern border. the southern border is in terrible shape. but 500 people on the terrorist list, watchlist, have come to the northern border. you look at the fentanyl and i learned that from you, because you have been affected by every

day. when i look at how new hampshire focuses on single moms, we were at a great center that helps single moms get an get back on track. learning about the addictions that new hampshire had and the veterans issues, listening to the story of that mom, where she dealt with the fentanyl issue, talking about the of school choice and why parents want that so much or the fact that they want to know that the economy continues to squeeze them no matter how much joe biden says the economy is good, nobody in new hampshire feels that. but those are the things i'll take away with me because those stories and those faces and those people, that is what makes you a good leader. because you can read all the books that you want, and you can watch all the news that you want, but if you don't hear what real people are saying and what real people care about, you will never truly lead in a way that lifts up everybody. >> thanks to governor haley and thanks for all the audience

here at new england college, make sure to join us next tuesday, starting at 4:00 pm eastern live coverage of the new hampshire primary, stay right here, we have analysis of the town hall that starts right now. next you and thanks to all of you. >> great job. >> [applause]

and then there were two. i'm dana bash, live from manchester new hampshire where the primary is rocked by a

major shape up 48 hours before the state votes, this is a cnn special report. florida governor ron desantis is out of the race tonight. suddenly suspending his campaign after a distant second place finish in iowa am aware told the decision came after conversations with his donors that his money to continue just was not there. here's a little bit of his announcement. >> and now serving as governor of florida, if there was anything i could do to produce a favorable outcome, more campaign stops, more interviews, i would. but i cannot - - and donate their resources, we don't have a clear path to victory. accordingly, i am today suspending my campaign. >> what came next may seem surprising, if you been listening to the way donald trump and ron desantis have gone after each other for nearly a year, but desantis

signed a pledge to support the nominee and he thinks the nominee is going to be donald trump. >> i've had disagreements with donald trump such as in the coronavirus pandemic and his elevation of anthony fauci. trump is superior to the current incumbent, joe biden, that is clear. >> trump tonight says he is honored by the endorsement, using desantis's real name. >> i would like to take time to congratulate ron desantis and of course, a really terrific person. >> he ran a really good campaign. >> he was very gracious and he endorsed me. so i appreciate it. >> i appreciate that. and i also look forward to working with ron >>