Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Trump’s biggest albatross is Nikki, not Stormy

Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley's ghost "continues to haunt Trump in some very significant and, for him, ominous ways," writes Cupp.

Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.

Donald Trump has a woman problem.

That sounds like an obvious statement about the thrice married former president who is currently defending himself against charges he paid off a porn star he slept with just months after his wife gave birth to their son.

But Stormy Daniels — said porn star — isn’t the only woman stalking the embattled mogul, tying up his time and money, and threatening to upend his chance at a second term.


There’s E. Jean Carroll. A jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s, and then awarded her $83.3 million in punitive and compensatory damages after Trump defamed her in denying those claims.

There’s also New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, two women who are pursuing additional charges against Trump in separate cases.

But it might not be a woman named Stormy, E. Jean, Tish or Fani who end Trump’s political aspirations. It might be a woman named Nikki.

You remember Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who took on Trump in the Republican primary a million years ago — or earlier this year?

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Well, despite dropping out of the race after Super Tuesday, her ghost continues to haunt Trump in some very significant and, for him, ominous ways.

On Tuesday night, Indiana Republican primary voters unsurprisingly awarded Trump all 58 of their delegates. But somewhat surprisingly, more than 20% of them voted against him. While he handily won 78.3% of the vote, the 128,000 Republican voters who instead pulled the lever for Nikki Haley sent the presumptive nominee a serious message: “We are not with you.”

Lest you think that an anomaly, late last month 83.4% of Republicans in Pennsylvania voted for Trump. But significantly, 16.6% — or roughly 158,000 — voted for Haley.

There’s more.

In Washington state, Haley won 19.3% — 150,832 votes — of the Republican primary vote. In Arizona, she won 17.8%. In Illinois, she won 14.5%. In Ohio, she won 14.4%.

This was all after Haley had officially dropped out of the race.

Needless to say, Trump should be very concerned.

For one, there’s the bad optics of a former president losing as much as 20% of his base to someone who is no longer running.

But, obviously, there’s also the math. In as tight a general election as this is turning out to be, Trump simply can’t afford to lose that much of his base.

In 2020, the battleground states that determined the fate of the election were decided by even fewer voters than the groups currently going for Haley.

In Michigan, Joe Biden beat Trump by just 154,188 votes. In Arizona, Biden won by only 10,457 votes. In Georgia, you remember, Trump asked the secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” in order to overturn the election.

For Trump those are some tight — and terrifying — margins.

There are likely myriad reasons why a not insignificant number of Republicans are still refusing to back him. Some are sick of the chaos, the trials, the constant drama, distractions, and unseriousness. Others are turned off by Trump’s MAGA acolytes in Congress, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Rep. Lauren Boebert, who consistently embarrass the party.

But there’s evidence a single issue is helping to drive those numbers: abortion.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal poll of seven battleground states, 39% of suburban women “cite abortion as a make-or-break issue for their vote — making it by far the most motivating issue for the group.”

And, “nearly three-quarters of them say the procedure should be legal all or most of the time, and a majority thinks Trump’s policies are too restrictive.”

Considering Trump keeps bragging about overturning Roe v. Wade, it’s not likely he can win those voters back.

It’s a question as to whether he’s even trying, in fact.

While he’s attempted to mitigate the blowback from a number of unpopular legislative wins against abortion rights by punting the issue rhetorically to the states, he’s explicitly told Haley voters he doesn’t want them.

After she won 43% of the vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary, Trump warned, “Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain [Nikki Haley], from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them…!”

So the big question looms: Where do these voters go if Trump isn’t trying to win them back? Will they stay home? Vote for Biden? RFK Jr.?

They have a plethora of options other than holding their nose and voting for him. Believe it or not, despite dropping out, Nikki Haley might just be the woman standing between Trump and the White House.

©2024 S.E. Cupp. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Read More

Understanding the Debate on Presidential Immunity

The U.S. White House.

Getty Images, Caroline Purser

Understanding the Debate on Presidential Immunity

Presidential Immunity: History and Background

Presidential immunity is the long-standing idea that the president of the United States has exemption from liability or legal proceedings for acts related to the duties of presidential office. Contrary to popular belief, presidential immunity is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution; only sitting members of Congress are explicitly granted judicial immunity through the Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause. Rather, the concept of presidential immunity has arisen through the Department of Justice’s longstanding policy against prosecuting presidents in office and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Article II, which has developed through a number of Supreme Court cases dating back to 1867.

Keep ReadingShow less
Donald Trump
President Donald Trump.
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Trump 2.0: Navigating the New Political Landscape

With Trump’s return to the White House, we once again bear daily witness to a spectacle that could be described as entertaining, were it only a TV series. But Trump’s unprecedented assault on our democratic norms and institutions is not only very real but represents the gravest peril our democratic republic has confronted in the last 80 years.

Trump’s gradual consolidation of power and authoritarian proclivities, reminiscent of an earlier era, are very frightening on their own account. But it is his uncanny ability to control the narrative that empowers him to shred our nation’s fabric while proceeding with impunity. His actions not only threaten the very republic that he now leads but overturn the entire post-WWII world order, which is now in chaos. Trump has ostensibly cast aside the governing principle with the U.N. Charter of Sovereignty. By suggesting on multiple occasions that the U.S. will “get Greenland one way or another,” and that Canada might become our 51st state, our neighbor to the north is now developing plans to protect itself from what it views as the enemy across the border.

Keep ReadingShow less
Free Speech and Freedom of the Press Under Assault

A speakerphone locked in a cage.

Getty Images, J Studios

Free Speech and Freedom of the Press Under Assault

On June 4, 2024, an op-ed I penned (“Project 2025 is a threat to democracy”) was published in The Fulcrum. It received over 74,000 views and landed as one of the top 10 most-read op-eds—out of 1,460—published in 2024.

The op-ed identified how the right-wing extremist Heritage Foundation think tank had prepared a 900-page blueprint of actions that the authors felt Donald Trump should implement—if elected—in the first 180 days of being America’s 47th president. Dozens of opinion articles were spun off from the op-ed by a multitude of cross-partisan freelance writers and published in The Fulcrum, identifying—very specifically—what Trump and his appointees would do by following the Heritage Foundation’s dictum of changing America from a pluralistic democracy to a form of democracy that, according to its policy blueprint, proposes “deleting the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), plus gender equality, out of every federal rule, agency regulation, contract, grant, regulation and piece of legislation that exists.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Devaluing Truth Makes America Weak

Blocks with letters on them, spelling out "Fake" or "Fact".

Getty Images, Constantine Johnny

Devaluing Truth Makes America Weak

Truth matters. You wouldn’t know that from watching the president address Congress earlier this month. The assault on truth since January has been breathtaking. The removal of data from government websites, the elevation of science deniers to positions in charge of scientific policy, and the advancement of health policy that flies in the face of scientific evidence are only the tip of the iceberg. We are watching a disaster in the making: Our leaders are all falling in line with a program that prioritizes politics and power over American success. But, we ignore the truth at our own peril—reality has a way of getting our attention even if we look the other way.

As a philosophy professor, my discipline’s attention to truth has never seemed more relevant than today. Although, there may be disagreement about the ultimate nature of truth, even the most minimal theory agrees that truth requires alignment with the way the world is. It is neither negotiable nor unimportant. Devaluing the importance of truth is a fool’s game, and it is incompatible with American success. It makes us weak and vulnerable; epidemics, deaths, and unrest will follow.

Keep ReadingShow less