Nikki Haley responds to Liz Cheney’s criticism of her Trump support

(WASHINGTON) — Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley pushed back against criticism from former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Haley’s support for former President Donald Trump despite previous comments saying she found him unfit for office.

In an exclusive This Week interview on Sunday, ABC News co-anchor Jonathan Karl asked Cheney about Haley saying she’s on “standby” to campaign for Trump after the former South Carolina governor openly opposed him in the Republican primaries.

Cheney, who last week endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, told Karl, “I can’t understand [Haley’s] position on this in any kind of a principled way. I think that, you know, the things that she said, that she made clear when she was running in the primary, those things are true.”

During the Republican presidential primary, Haley said Trump lacked focus and that “chaos follows him.” Months later, Haley said she would vote for Trump despite her disappointment with him.

Reacting to Cheney’s remarks, Haley told Fox and Friends Monday morning, “I respect her decision, but she can’t say my decision is not principled. It actually is.”

“We can either vote based on style or we can vote on substance. I’m voting based on substance,” she continued. “I’m looking at the fact we can’t live the next four years like we did the last four years. This is no contest.”

Seeking to contrast Trump with Harris on the economy, border and energy, Haley added, “We should be very clear, if you don’t like him, say you don’t like him, but you can’t say that his policies are worse than Kamala Harris’.”

Haley also directly criticized Trump and running mate Sen. JD Vance when asked about the “gender gap” with women supporting Harris more than Trump.

“I think it’s because Donald Trump and JD Vance need to change the way they speak about women. You don’t need to call Kamala dumb. She didn’t get this far, you know, just by accident — she’s here. That’s what it is. She’s a prosecutor,” Haley said. “You don’t need to go and talk about intelligence, or looks or anything else. Just focus on the policies. When you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up too.”

Last month, Trump said he’s “entitled” to the personal attacks aimed at Harris — because he doesn’t respect her and doesn’t “have a lot of respect for her intelligence.”

Haley reiterated that Trump should ditch those attacks to focus on substance.

“The bottom line is, we win on policy. Stick to the policies, leave all the other stuff. That’s how he can win,” Haley said.