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Ambassador Haiti, thank you very much for catching up with Bloomberg this morning. If Lenawmi, I'd like to go straight to some of the polls, because I think you find yourself in a really peculiar position. Head to head with a sitting president, you dominate him. Within your own party, you're struggling. The latest poll from the Washington Post Monmouth University shows fifty eight percent of South Carolina voter support
Trump compared to thirty two percent for you. So my question would be how much daylight is there between what your party wants and what you think is.
Good for it.
Well, you know, first of all, I'm really proud of what we've done. We had fourteen people in the race. We've defeated a dozen of the fellas. I just got one more. I've got to catch up to. Everybody said we wouldn't be able to do it. We started with two percent in Iowa, we ended up with twenty percent. We went to New Hampshire we got forty three percent of the vote. We increased twenty five points in the last three weeks of New Hampshire. This race is still
very much moving. We are going to continue to close that gap in South Carolina as we had to Michigan and Super Tuesday. Remember, seventy percent of Americans don't want to see a Trump Biden rematch.
I am pushing.
Through to make sure they have a voice. That's what we have to do. That's what matters. You've got, you know, a decision whether to keep more of the same or whether to go in a new direction, more of the same as not just Joe Biden, more of the same as Donald Trump. And we've got to stop the chaos. We've got to stop the division. But more importantly, we've
got to get our domestic issues on track. We've got to get our national security on track, and we've got to get the American families back on track.
Well, let's kick it off with some foreign policy. So you've voiced opposition clearly to Trump's remarks on NATO over the weekend. I'm struggling to find more than a handful of Republican senators who agree with you. Is that any evidence that Trump's thinking is unpopular with GOP voters.
Well, you know, it's not to go and blame the voters, and it's not to go and blame the American people out. I've always said it's important for Joe Biden and Congress to tell the American people why they should care to give them the other side, And you don't hear that. The other side is that NATO's been a seventy five year success story.
We have not had war in the region.
And if you look, Russia has never invaded a NATO country. They've invaded Georgia, They've invaded Ukraine, they've invaded Moldova. So we want to make sure that, yes, do we want NATO to pay more, of course we do. But the last thing we're going to do is side with a thug. Keep in mind Putin kills his opponents. Keep in mind that he has arrested Evan Gersovitch, who's been sitting in jail just for doing journalism. Keep in mind that this is a man who has wanted to destroy America and
defeat America for years. I dealt with Russia every single day. It is a mistake for Trump to side with Putin over our allies. We needed a lot of friends after nine to eleven. We better remember that. But it takes a friend to get a friend.
Ambassador Haley, I'm sure you've seen the comments from the likes of Lyn Graham and Marco Rubio when it comes to NATO. Do you feel like you're potentially at a step with members of your own party.
You know it's not. The goal is never to follow the polls. The goal is to make sure you communicate what's right. We need to make sure that we have an alliance that's strong. Our whole goal is to prevent war. That's the main thing. I mean, you look at Russia right now. The reason people should care about Ukraine is because one it's a pro American freedom loving country. But two, listen to what Putin said. Putin said, once he takes Ukraine, Poland and the Baltics are next. Those are NATO countries
that immediately puts America at war. This is about preventing war. This is about keeping an alliance strong. This is about bringing more friends in, not pushing friends away. Donald Trump doesn't get that, and that's what will creep us into war.
We can't have that.
And so our goal is not to go and blame the American people for feeling the way they do. It's to make sure we get our message out on why they should care and how this is in the best centrists of America, and for those politicians who are refusing to say that, that's a disservice to the people that they serve.
If the goal to bring more friends in would you agree that President Biden has done a good job in expanding the NATO alliance?
Well, I think first of all, I think that he, yes, he understands the importance of NATO, but he doesn't understand the importance of preventing war. He could have prevented Putin going into Ukraine. All of this wouldn't have happened if we wouldn't have had the debacle in Afghanistan.
I mean, think about the fact that we left boger.
Mair Force Base in the middle of the night without telling our allies who stood shoulder to shoulder with us for decades because we asked them to be there. Think about what that told our friends. More importantly, think about what that said to our enemies. So there's no surprise that Putin went and invaded Ukraine. There's no surprise that we're seeing Aron push its terrorist proxies to do evil.
Around the world.
There's no surprise that Hamas has invaded Israel. There's no surprise that China is doing surveillance and intimidation over Taiwan. They see that the US is weak and they don't trust it. And the fact that we are watching Joe Biden in decline is not helping that Russia, China, and iron are watching every day the decline of Joe Biden. This is bigger about a bigger than a party. This is about the fact that we've got to look out
for the national interests of our country. And that's when you put all of this aside and say, what do we need.
We don't need.
Two eighty year old candidates running for president. We need someone who can serve eight years. Discipline, strong, no volatility, no drama, no vindictiveness. Just get the job done for the American people. That's what I'm trying to do.
Well. When it comes to mental acuity, I know you want to make a standard that they have to take these tests. You said you're willing to take these tests. Do you expect Biden or Trump to take a mental acuity test before November?
I expect that if you look at the fact, this is just a fact. There's a reason pilots can't fly after the age of sixty five. There's a reason you have to get out of the military after a limited age. There are a lot of industries that do that because it is fact you are in decline. You look at Joe Biden two years ago, very different than what you see Joe Biden today. You look at Donald Trump in
twenty sixteen, very different than what you see today. Donald Trump the other day went on three four times saying that I should have had security at the Capitol on January sixth. I didn't never had a job in DC, I never was in charge of security.
He was confused. That is what happens.
What I am saying is I don't care if you do mental competency tests for fifty en up. But these are people making decisions on our national security. These are people making decisions on the future of our economy. We need to know they're at the top of their game. This is not about whether you like them or they hold a baby well. This is about the fact that we have serious issues in our country. Our country is in disarray and the world is on fire, and we
can't go through four more years of chaos. We won't survive it.
And Massad Haley, you point out a number of gaffes, not just from the former President Trump, but also current President Biden. At the same time, they're still beating you in polls when it comes to Trump, even the ft over the weekend, when it comes to handling of the economy, you're trailing Biden. Why is that?
Well, first of all, if you look at the general election polls, you see that I do defeat Biden by almost seventeen points.
You can look at the Marquete pole that just came out last week.
I defeat Biden and Wisconsin by fifteen points. Trump doesn't defeat Biden. And we have to look at the fact that if we go in all the swing states, I defeat Biden and if I win by double digits.
Do you know what that means?
That means you go into DC with a mandate, A mandate to stop the wasteful spending and get our economy back on track, a mandate to get our kids reading again and go back to the basics and education.
A mandate to.
Secure our borders with no more excuses, a mandate for law and order back in our cities, and a mandate of a strong America that prevents wars that we can all be proud of That's the goal of where we're.
Trying to go.
We've got to get past this partisan it's got to be him or him. I think the problem is both of those men. You look at it, whether it's these court cases where they had national security documents they shouldn't have had. If you've ever had a job that dealt with any sort of security documents, you know that they
are handled with extreme care. The fact that both of these gentlemen were so arrogant to have those documents, bragging around about them or having them in a garage tells you this is more about them than it is about the American people.
That's the focus.
We've got to get this back on the American people and stop getting it on these two men who are refusing to give up their power.
We can focus on that right now. Bassidor Haley, you mentioned the economy, let's talk about it. Last summer, you spoke to this network about ways to combat rising debt. I've got the transcript in front of me. My colleague Joe Matthew asked you, how would you manage the entitlements to try and get our arms around soaring debt? Your answer? Any candidate that says they're not going to touch entitlements that basically going to go into office and leave America bankrupt.
One option you offered, we change retirement age to reflect life expectancy. Your original answer is now part of Trump campaign. Ats is that still something you want to do?
Well, First of all, that's not what I said.
What I said is we should not ever take away from those who have invested in and those who have been promised America should always keep their promises. I said we should go and change the rules for those in their twenties. That's the problem those in their twenties, like my kids. For them, we should change the retirement age to life expectancy. Instead of cost of living increases, we
should do increases based on inflation. We should cap the benefits on the megawealthy, and we should expand Medicare advantage plans. What Donald Trump wants to do is he doesn't want to touch it, so that when Social Security goes bankrupt in ten ures, everybody gets a twenty four percent cut across the board.
That's not how you handle a problem. I'm going to count it. The thing you do is you get in front of the problem.
When we make those changes, that's when you start focusing on what it takes to make sure not only does everybody who've paid and keep what they get, but you make sure that our kids will actually have something when the time comes for them as well. We have to take that seriously, and we have to stop having Congress raid the Social Security accounts. Right now they're rating all
of those accounts. Instead of stopping the wasteful spending, we'll stop the spending, stop the borrowing, eliminate the pet projects, and al Vito any spending bill that doesn't take us back to pre COVID levels.
Ambasso, do you still think sixty five is way too low when it comes to retirement.
I think it depends.
We need to go and look at the numbers and see exactly where it should be. I think right now we do know that people are living longer. What the age should be depends. But for everybody that's paid in the system, the age is sixty five. That will stay sixty five for those in their twenties. That's where we're going to have to go and look and say what's the right age for us To do that we can solve this problem. People don't have to live in fear the they're going to lose their social Security, but we
need to be honest with them. Communicate to them that social Security will go bankrupt in ten years, Communicate to them that Medicare will go bankrupt in eight and let them know that we're going to find a way to make sure they keep what they have.
But we're going to have to make changes.
Going forward so that we can start to make sure these things are solvent.
In ten years.
Just changing some of the respect to twenty year olds isn't going to necessarily change the equation financially in terms of making Social Security more sustainable. So what else could you do in the near term to make the sustainable.
Well, right now, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are saying they're not going to do anything, which means you're going to have a twenty four percent cap twenty four percent cut in ten years. At least I'm willing to do something about it. At least I'm willing to tell the American people the truth that there is a problem and that we're going.
To fix it.
So the thing is you start with that, you also start with cutting out the wasteful spending that's happened from Republicans and Democrats. We saw that two point two trillion dollar COVID Stace simulus bill that passed with no accountability.
That's now expanded welfare.
That's left us with eighty million Americans on Medicaid, forty two million Americans on food stamps.
That's a third of our country.
And instead of Republicans doubling down and trying to make something right, they opened up pet projects and earmarks for the first time in ten years, pushing through seven thousand of them last year.
You've got to stop that.
The other ways we're going to do it is we're going to take as many programs in the federal government as we can and pass them down to the state level. That will dramatically reduce the size of the federal government, but it will empower people on the ground. Think education, think welfare, think healthcare, think mental health. When you go and cut those strengths and allow that to go down to the people, you're reducing the size of the bloated
government we have. Everybody loves to talk about how great the economy was under Donald Trump. Well, yet seemed great, but at what costs? Well, he put US eight trillion dollars in debt in just four years Joe Biden went and doubled down and put us even more in debt.
That's not how you fix the economy.
That's how you go and leave younger generations in a situation they'll never be able to pull out of.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is talking about heavily taroffing Chinese goods, potentially up to forty percent. Do you see this as one viable way to raise money.
Absolutely not.
All that does is raise taxes on the American families and our small businesses that we need to be taken care of.
It is ludicrous that.
He wants to go and raise those tariffs to everything that we import that's going to affect American families on anything from baby strollers to appliances. Every American family will see at least a twenty eight hundred dollars increase in their taxes. Not only that, Not only does he want to cut Social Security by twenty four percent ten years, he wanted to raise the gas tax by twenty five cents per gallon in twenty eighteen. He doesn't understand the
value of a taxpayer dollar. He doesn't understand that you don't go in debt, you don't tax the American people. You don't go and take away big take care of big corporations. You take care of small businesses and American families by making sure they have more cash that they can spend. That's been what's lost not only in Donald Trump, but in Joe Biden and in every member of Congress.
And Masiba Haiti. Given that, given that you seemingly consider, and many of us do too, that a tariff on China is a tax on American consumers, would you consider repealing existing tariffs on Chinese imports.
China's different now when you talk about Trump wants to do tariffs across the board from every country, China we have to deal with differently. We have to understand China has been preparing for war with US for years.
That's not an exaggeration. They're already here.
We know that they bought four hundred thousand acres of US soil, most recently near Grand Forks Air Force Base, where our most.
Sensitive drone technology is.
They're putting millions of dollars into our universities, stealing our research and spreading Chinese propaganda. They've got Chinese police stations throughout our country. We know they had the Chinese by balloon that was doing surveillance over a country that now connected with a US Internet company and sent that surveillance to China. They're building up their military threatening America. What we need to do is when we look at China,
you look at it through a national security lens. You look at it and say, if China pulled the rug out from under us tomorrow, would we be ready? Think about what happened during COVID. Everybody was told to wear a mask? Who made the masks China did? Everybody was told to take a COVID test.
You turned it over.
It was made in China. Go into your drug stores right now. All of those medications are made in China. We've got to focus on what do we do to change that narrative, to make sure that the American.
People are not dependent on China.
But we move that trade either to where we make it in South make it in America, or we go and we make it with our allies and our friends.