Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley expressed her opposition Wednesday to the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling to disqualify former President Trump from the state ballot, arguing the decision is “truly unthinkable.”
“The idea that judges are going to take it upon themselves to decide who can and can’t be on the ballot is truly unthinkable,” Haley said in an interview with Fox News’s Martha MacCallum. “And I think the people of Colorado should be furious.”
Colorado’s high court on Tuesday handed down a ruling stating Trump should be prevented from appearing on the ballot under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause, which states those who took oaths to support the Constitution cannot engage in a rebellion against it.
The court’s 4-3 ruling states Trump engaged in an insurrection by falsely claiming election fraud and rallying his supporters to go to the Capitol prior to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, and rules the office of the presidency falls under the insurrection clause.
Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and former governor of South Carolina, emphasized she will defeat Trump “on [her] own” and doesn’t need a judge to remove him from the ballot.
“I don’t think [Trump] should be president, I think I should be president,” Haley said Wednesday. “I think our country would do a lot better if I was, but we should have this race fair and square with him on the ballot, just like everybody else.”
“And the idea that we go and say, just because these liberal justices don’t like him, they want to take him off the ballot — that’s not democracy, that’s not who we are. That’s not what we need to do.”
Haley’s remarks echo sentiments from several GOP lawmakers and candidates competing against her and Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.
Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, along with several GOP congressional members, have argued the Colorado ruling is an attempt by Democrats to prevent Trump from the 2024 election.
All justices of the Colorado Supreme Court’s seven-member bench were appointed by Democratic governors, a point several GOP figures have stressed in their criticism of the ruling. Six of these justices won retention elections, and the seventh will run to do so in the next year.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another GOP White House hopeful, said voters, not the courts, should decide whether Trump should be “prevented” from reelection in 2024. Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy went as far as to say that he would “withdraw” from the Colorado ballot unless Trump is included.