POLITICO Nightly: Will Nikki Haley bend the knee?

 

BY CHARLIE MAHTESIAN Presented by Feeding America Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley walks off stage after announcing the suspension of her presidential campaign at her campaign headquarters in Daniel Island, S.C. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images TIME FOR CHOOSING — One by one, they’ve bent the knee and tasted the boot polish. Ted Cruz. Marco Rubio. Lindsey Graham. Ron DeSantis. The list goes on. Today, one of the last holdouts, Sen. Mitch McConnell, caved and delivered his own endorsement to Donald Trump, all but acknowledging Trump’s absolute and total dominion over the party they once owned. For some, the submission came in the service of ambition. Others did it for the sake of party unity. The common thread is that each was diminished by the capitulation, taking them ever further from the principles that led them to public service years ago. Now it’s Nikki Haley’s turn. Haley suspended her presidential campaign today on the heels of a Super Tuesday wipeout — she lost 14 of the 15 states voting. Yet she consciously avoided the words that Trump and the GOP were waiting to hear in her speech today. If anything, there were notes of defiance designed for Mar-a-Lago’s consumption. She conceded Trump will be the Republican nominee — she prefaced it with “in all likelihood” — and congratulated him on his victory. She noted she has always supported the Republican nominee. Then she deliberately stopped short of doing exactly that. Unlike DeSantis, who endorsed Trump the moment he dropped out of the primary in January, Haley held back her support and put the onus on the former president. “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that. At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.” Even before she stepped away from the microphone, Haley had her answer. “Nikki Haley got TROUNCED last night, in record setting fashion, despite the fact that Democrats, for reasons unknown, are allowed to vote in Vermont, and various other Republican Primaries. Much of her money came from Radical Left Democrats, as did many of her voters, almost 50%, according to the polls. At this point, I hope she stays in the ‘race’ and fights it out until the end!” Trump posted on Truth Social , while Haley was speaking. Now comes the complicated part for Haley, the time when she has to decide what she values most — a vice presidential nod that would take her a step closer to the White House? A primetime speaking slot at the convention? Something else? Does she hold out and play the long game, betting on a Trump defeat in November that might shake the party from his control and burnish her stature as a truth-teller who was right all along? Does she have an even longer horizon in mind, one that reaches beyond 2028, recognizing that at the age of 52 she might be a viable candidate into the late 2030s or perhaps beyond? Can she build a separate platform within the party, serving as the GOP’s MAGA era emissary to the suburbs and independents? There are several national models to choose from, though both of them are cautionary tales. One of them is the Ted Cruz model. The Texas senator could have gone down in political history for his famous convention burn of Trump in 2016, when he took to the stage and dramatically refused to endorse a GOP nominee he couldn’t support in good conscience. “We deserve leaders who stand for principle, who unite us all behind shared values, who cast aside anger for love,” Cruz said, in a stunning, nationally televised rebuke that led him to be booed out of the arena. “That is the standard we should expect from everybody.” Remember that moment? No one does. Because two months later, Cruz knuckled under and endorsed Trump, forever cementing his legacy as the presidential candidate who still kissed the ring after Trump gratuitously attacked his wife and father. As a result, Cruz remains a viable future candidate for the GOP nomination, but it was a high price to pay. Another option is the Liz Cheney path — resist Trump and willfully sacrifice your future in elected office for a bigger cause. It’s a hard and lonely road, and not for the fainthearted. But Haley has always operated as an outsider, whether as a state legislator, a governor or now as a MAGA apostate, so she might be suited for it. It seems Haley herself isn’t quite sure which future to steer toward. As recently as last month, she declined to say directly whether she’d support the man she described as “unhinged” and “unfit” for office. On Sunday, she said she no longer feels bound by her pledge to the Republican National Committee to support the nominee. Wherever Haley lands, it will reveal a great deal about how she envisions the future of the party. Over the next decade, will there still be room for an internationalist wing that includes her? Will there even be room for a Ronald Reagan wing? Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s author at cmahtesian@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @PoliticoCharlie .   A message from Feeding America: By increasing TEFAP funding in the farm bill, Congress has the power to help us begin to end hunger. Learn more.   WHAT'D I MISS? — House clears long-delayed spending package ahead of shutdown deadline: The House approved a six-bill government funding package today , sending the bill to the Senate with little time to spare before yet another government shutdown deadline. The upper chamber must now lock down an agreement to speed up votes on the $459 billion measure before the weekend, which requires consent from all 100 senators. Republicans will likely demand a number of amendment votes in exchange, though none are expected to succeed. — SEC set to launch landmark climate rule, sparking legal blitz: Wall Street’s top regulator green-lit a groundbreaking rule aimed at uncovering new climate-related information from corporate America , capping a pressure campaign that has fractured Washington for two years. The Securities and Exchange Commission voted today to order thousands of public companies to begin divulging more details about the climate risks they face, the costs of severe weather events and, in some cases, their greenhouse gas emissions. The rule represents one of the biggest overhauls of U.S. corporate reporting in years and is a legacy-defining effort for SEC Chair Gary Gensler. — Boeing stonewalling Alaska Airlines investigation, federal accident chief says: The head of the federal board investigating a midair door blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight in January told senators today that Boeing is refusing to cough up crucial records of work performed on the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft at the heart of the probe. Jennifer Homendy, the head of the independent National Transportation Safety Board, said Boeing has so far stonewalled her agency’s repeated requests for a paper trail that would show how the door plug in question was installed or what team performed or oversaw the work. Homendy said her agency is aware that the work in question is performed by a team of 25 people and a manager at a facility in Renton, Washington, where the 737 MAX is made — but that Boeing has refused to release their names. NIGHTLY ROAD TO 2024 Democratic challenger U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips listens to supporters during a campaign rally on Jan. 22, 2024 in Manchester, New Hampshire. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images DEAN DOWN — Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) announced today that he was suspending his campaign following a poor showing on Super Tuesday. His decision puts an end to a campaign that attacked President Joe Biden’s age and electability but failed to draw substantial support from Democratic voters. Phillips said he was endorsing Biden’s reelection. “Clearly and convincingly Democratic primary voters have opined that I’m not that guy,” he told The Chad Hartman Show. Though Phillips didn’t back away from some of his criticisms of the president he did argue that it was a fundamental necessity to keep him in the White House. SUBPOENA TIME — Arizona prosecutors in recent weeks issued grand jury subpoenas to multiple people linked to Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign , a sharp acceleration of their criminal investigation into efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state. The new steps, first reported by POLITICO, are a sign that Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, is nearing a decision on whether to charge Trump’s allies in the state, including GOP activists who falsely posed as presidential electors in December 2020. COMING AROUND — Mitch McConnell is endorsing Donald Trump for president , a move that the Senate GOP leader made after Trump’s only main rival dropped out of the GOP primary, POLITICO reports. Despite their nonexistent relationships over the past three years, McConnell has always maintained he would support the eventual Republican nominee — and Nikki Haley’s suspension of her campaign unlocked McConnell’s formal endorsement. His decision to formally back Trump amounts to a detente, however involuntary, after a rocky three years between the two men. “It is abundantly clear that former President Trump has earned the requisite support of Republican voters to be our nominee for President of the United States,” McConnell said in a statement. “It should come as no surprise that as nominee, he will have my support.” STAYING OUT OF IT — Elon Musk posted on X today that he won’t be “donating money to either candidate” for president , a day after The New York Times reported the Tesla CEO met with Donald Trump in Florida. Even if Musk doesn’t donate directly to a candidate, there are other ways for him give financial support to a campaign. He could donate to a super PAC, which can accept and spend unlimited amounts of money, for example, or to a “dark money” group that doesn’t report its donors because of its nonprofit status.   A message from Feeding America:   AROUND THE WORLD ATTACK AT SEA — A suspected attack by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on a commercial ship in the Gulf of Aden caused “fatalities” and forced the crew to abandon the vessel today, authorities said, the first fatal strike in a campaign of assaults by the group over Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip, The Associated Press reports. The attack on the Barbados-flagged bulk carrier True Confidence further escalates the conflict on a crucial maritime route linking Asia and the Middle East to Europe that has disrupted global shipping. The Iranian-backed Houthis have launched attacks since November, and the U.S. began an airstrike campaign in January that so far hasn’t halted the rebels’ attacks. The attack killed two mariners and injured six more, according to two U.S. officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss details before they’re announced. Meanwhile, Iran announced Wednesday that it would confiscate a $50 million cargo of Kuwaiti crude oil for American energy firm Chevron Corp. aboard a tanker it seized nearly a year earlier. It marks the latest twist in a yearslong shadow war playing out in the Middle East’s waterways even before the Houthi attacks began. NIGHTLY NUMBER 1,000 The number of National Guard members and police that New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul is deploying to the New York City subways in a plan to strengthen safety less than a week after a subway conductor was slashed in the neck while on the job. RADAR SWEEP RUNNING DRY — The Panama Canal, the most famous waterway in the Americas and an essential shipping passage, is running low on water . The canal is fed by Lake Gatún, and a severe lack of rainwater to the lake has made water levels shrivel up. This, in turn, has meant that the canal can’t have as many ships pass through as quickly, significantly impacting global trade and prices around the world. It’s a growing problem that is both affecting local drinking water in Panama City and shipping companies that supply all kinds of goods. The Panama Canal Authority’s first ever chief sustainability officer, Ilya Espino de Marotta, says they’re working on it — but no easy solutions exist. Michelle Fleury reports on the issue for the BBC. PARTING IMAGE On this date in 1983: West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl celebrates in Bonn, Germany following his Christian Democratic Party's victory in the federal elections. The CDU/CSU alliance remained the largest faction in the Bundestag, allowing Kohl to remain chancellor. | AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   A message from Feeding America: The Emergency Food Assistance Food Program (TEFAP) is one of the most effective ways we can reduce hunger in America. We need Congressional support to expand it. Right now, children, seniors, and families are facing hunger. Congress has the ability to help this issue. It’s time for them to step up. Learn more.     Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   FOLLOW US

POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA