00:00 For some analysis we're joined now by Stephen Ekovich, Professor of Political Science at the American University of Paris.
00:08 Thank you so much for being with us here this morning, Stephen.
00:11 Firstly, Nikki Haley, she's planning on getting straight back onto the campaign trail in Michigan this Sunday.
00:18 Why is she so determined to stay in the race?
00:23 There are a lot of theories about this.
00:26 One is that she's doing the right thing, challenging Donald Trump.
00:31 The other is she's hoping to stay in the race, perhaps to anticipate some reason that Donald Trump may withdraw from the race.
00:40 For example, he may end up, he will certainly be convicted in one of these trials.
00:47 Would that mean some sort of jail sentence or not?
00:51 So, well, in any way, in general terms, I think she's hoping that in one way or another, Donald Trump is going to hit a wall and will not be able to continue the race.
01:00 So she will continue to attack the former president to try to demonstrate that he's incapable, incompetent,
01:12 and that a real classic Republican like herself is the best candidate to face Joe Biden.
01:18 In fact, the polls do show that Nikki Haley will clearly defeat Biden in a face to face in the general election.
01:29 And, you know, normally a president, when Donald Trump is running as an incumbent, normally an incumbent president in a primary wins at least 90 percent of the vote.
01:37 Here he got 60 percent and she got 40 percent.
01:41 Analysts before this primary election were saying if Nikki Haley could get the 40 percent, it shows that she's building momentum.
01:48 So this is not an undiluted victory for Donald Trump.
01:53 It's not a catastrophic defeat either for Nikki Haley.
01:57 The contest goes on.
01:59 But there is no denying, Shirley, that this is a crushing defeat for her.
02:02 She was a two time state governor here and must cast doubt on her long term viability,
02:09 particularly seeing as she had campaigned so aggressively in her home state and she's still lost.
02:14 It's not a crushing defeat. I just said it's not a crushing defeat.
02:18 She's building momentum. She's staying in the race.
02:20 She has a lot of money, a lot of big donors.
02:25 And she's gaining more and more money.
02:27 Money is what keeps you in the race.
02:28 Donald Trump's donations, on the contrary, are descending.
02:36 He has fewer and fewer donors. And furthermore, he's spending more and more of his campaign money on his legal fees and on the penalties he has to pay for the convictions in some of these lawsuits.
02:51 So, no, it's not a crushing defeat. She's going on and we're going to see what happens.
02:58 Nikki Haley, she has warned herself that sticking with Donald Trump and the distractions,
03:04 if we could call it that, of his four criminal indictments, that's a pathway to defeat,
03:08 she argues, in the race for the White House. And yet his political appeal endures.
03:13 How to explain that, Professor?
03:17 I just told you it's not that's not the case.
03:20 Donald Trump, look, in a match up against Joe Biden,
03:28 the Democrats would prefer to run against Donald Trump.
03:32 Joe Biden stands a better chance of continuing his presidency if he runs against Donald Trump.
03:38 If he has to run against Nikki Haley, the polls show he loses and he loses cleanly and clearly.
03:44 So the real, if you will, the real victor in today's primary in South Carolina is Joe Biden, because Nikki Haley will continue the race.
03:55 She has the money to continue. She will continue to attack Donald Trump.
04:00 And that's good for the Democrats and that's good for Joe Biden.
04:03 She'll continue to attack. It's not clear she will get the nomination.
04:06 But once again, that's also positive for Biden because the Biden campaign prefers to run against Donald Trump.
04:13 And how do you explain, though, the appeal of Donald Trump?
04:16 That was really what I was trying to ask you there.
04:18 Despite the litany of criminal charges he's facing, he's still very appealing to Republican voters.
04:25 How do you explain that?
04:26 Well, there are two reasons. One is ideological.
04:30 That has to do with a certain kind of charisma that he has.
04:34 But the other is, in essence, Donald Trump has been captured by a social movement, a social movement with an ideology,
04:41 a zealous social movement, which is called now Christian nationalism.
04:47 But Christian nationalism is more than a zealous universe of closed truths.
04:56 It is also an organization. It's a structured organization.
04:59 It has its policy organizations like the Heritage Foundation.
05:04 It has this legal foundation like the Federalist Society.
05:07 It has its databases.
05:09 It has a whole network of evangelical churches all across the United States with thousands of pastors who can provide,
05:19 who can give the propaganda of Donald Trump and who can mobilize the votes and get them out to vote.
05:28 They try to do fundraising.
05:30 Donald Trump is having problems here with fundraising.
05:32 Nevertheless, they have an important fundraising machine.
05:35 They can mobilize voters.
05:36 They can bring them to the polls.
05:38 So it's not only ideology.
05:40 It's not only charisma.
05:43 It's also that this part of the Republican Party is putting together an organization that plans to put one of theirs,
05:51 and for the moment it's Donald Trump, into the White House so that they can reshape American government.
05:56 But once again, it's more in this term, it's the organization capturing Trump rather than Trump capturing the organization.
06:05 Professor, thank you so much for your time on the program.
06:07 That is Stephen Eckevich from the American University of Paris joining us live.
