Nikki Haley town hall with Fox News concludes with topics including education, immigration

Monday night's town hall event with Nikki Haley hosted by Fox News concluded with topics including abortion, education and aid to other countries -- specifically those who hate America.

Co-moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum welcomed GOP candidate Haley to the stage just one week ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Haley took questions from a number of audience members and touched on various topics important to the American people. These included immigration and border security and the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The town hall is one of three Fox News is hosting this week. Tomorrow beginning at 6 p.m. ET, co-moderators Baier and MacCallum will host presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and on Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. ET, they will welcome GOP frontrunner Donald Trump to the stage.

Tune in to Fox News Channel or live stream on FOX Nation, FOX News Media's streaming platform, as well as FOXNews.com and FOXBusiness.com for the next two town hall events.

Nikki Haley ripped the multiple legal efforts in a number of states across the country trying to prevent former President Donald Trump from appearing on primary ballots this year.

"No, he shouldn’t be taken off the ballot, and the Supreme Court needs to rule quickly before other states start to do this," Haley said when asked whether Trump should be taken off the ballot.

"This is one of those don’t open a door if you don’t want to see what happens. This is a door we don’t need to open. I will defeat President Trump fair and square," Haley said.

She added that if states could do that to Trump, then they would do it to someone else in the future.

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley took aim at President Biden while discussing her desire to bring term limits to Congress and outlining her plan to make that happen.

"Not only do I want to see term limits, I want to see mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75," Haley told a member of the audience at her Fox News town hall in Iowa on Monday night. "And I'm not being disrespectful when I say that. We all know people over 75 that would run circles around us. Senator Grassley is a perfect example of that. But then we know Joe Biden and right now Congress has become the most privileged nursing home in the country."

Haley continued, "These are people making decisions on our national security. These are people making decisions on the future of our economy. We need to know they're at the top of their game. And yes, I'm strong advocate for term limits the way we would deal with that. no, Congress isn't going to vote on it, so we're going to build them up to it. I will have a Haley term limits pledge that everyone needs to sign when they decide to run for office, incumbent or otherwise, and we will find out where they are on term limits."

Haley said that once those pledges are signed she will "give that information to the American people" so that they can "ask that elected official about it and you know where they stand."

"And then when we get enough term limit pledges into Congress, that's when we will go and vote on it to make sure that we get term limits back in DC. We will do it from the outside in rather than the inside out."

Regarding the topic of abortion and abortion bans, Haley told viewers, "The only way a federal ban will pass is if you have a majority, the House, 60 Senate votes and a signature of a president. We haven't had 60 senators in over 100 years. We may have 45 pro-life senators."

She added, "Our overall goal should be how do we save as many babies as possible and support as moms as possible?"

"I think we'll find consensus that doctors and nurses who don't believe in abortion shouldn't have to perform them," Haley said of finding consensus on abortion on a federal level. "I think we'll find consensus on the fact that contraception should be accessible. And I think we'll find consensus that no state law should say to a woman that gets an abortion, that she's going to jail or getting the death penalty. That's where we will find consensus."

During the first GOP presidential debate in late August, Haley was the only candidate to call out the media, who are frequently the target of criticism by prominent Republicans.

On the subject of abortion, she put a spotlight on how the Democratic ticket members haven't commented on where they draw the line when it comes to abortion limits, if at all.

Following the first GOP debate, Haley also told Fox News anchor Sean Hannity in regards to abortion, "Let's humanize the issue."

"I think we are all pro-life but what I would love is for someone to ask Biden and Kamala Harris are they for 38 weeks, are they for 39 weeks or are they for 40 weeks. That is what the media needs to be asking," Haley said from the debate stage.

In late May, Haley told an audience at Saint Anselm College, "I can’t suddenly change my pro-life position because I’m campaigning in New Hampshire," Haley said. "It’s incredibly personal, and I’m going to treat it with the respect it deserves."

Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.

Nikki Haley hit back at former President Donald Trump over his claim she "betrayed" him by running for president despite telling him she wouldn't run against him.

"When I said that I would never run against him, we hadn’t had the debacle in Afghanistan, we hadn’t had inflation go through the roof, and we didn’t lose the midterms by ridiculous numbers," Haley said.

"What he won’t tell you is when I decided to run, I called him. And I called him for two reasons. One, because it was the right thing to do ... and two, because I wanted him to know I was in it to win it," she said.

Haley added that she told Trump the nation needed a "new generational leader," who would leave the negativity and the baggage behind.

"Chaos follows him, and y'all know I'm right," she said.

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley pushed back against an attack ad from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during a Monday night Iowa town hall and accused him of "lying" about her past comments about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"DeSantis is desperate," Haley said. "He's lying because he's losing. But let's go to the problem is, if you have to lie to win, you don't deserve to win. I never said Hillary Clinton was an inspiration. What I said when I was talking to a group of women who were looking at running for office, I said the same thing about her that I said about Sarah Palin, and that is when I was looking to run. Everybody told me why I couldn't do it."

"They said, You're too young. They said, you have small children. Oh, you should start at the school board level. And I went to a women's leadership forum at Furman University, and one of the speakers happened to be Hillary Clinton. And I have never agreed with a single thing. Hillary Clinton has ever said. And I said that, too. But Ron forgot to put that in the ad."

DeSantis and Trump have criticized Haley over a 2012 interview with the New York Times where Haley said, "The reason I actually ran for office is because of Hillary Clinton" before explaining how people told her she couldn't run for office as a woman of her age with a family.

In Haley's 2019 book, With All Due Respect, Haley said that Clinton had "inspired me to run for office and make my voice heard."

"It's not just the Southern border. It's the northern border, too," Haley said during the Fox News hosted town hall Monday night.

"I mean, you look at the fact that we have had 8 million illegal immigrants come to that border. Biden set back only 142,000 last year. That's it. We've had more fentanyl across the border that would kill every single American. Number one, cause of death for adults, 18 to 45, fentanyl," she said. "And don't think for a second China doesn't know what they're doing when they send it over. If we want to deal with this, we have to deal with it once and for all. No more excuses. And that means more than just building a wall. We need to do more than that."

On Monday night, Haley told Bret Baier, Martha MacCallum and audience members, "When I was governor, I passed one of the toughest illegal immigration laws in the country. Obama sued me over it. We need to carry that nationwide. We'll do a national E-Verify program where businesses have to prove that the people they hire are in this country legally. We'll put 25,000 Border Patrol and ICE agents on the ground and let them do their job. They're not letting them do their job right now."

Haley was the first 2024 White House hopeful to visit southern border following candidates announcements to run.

In April 2023, she highlighted President Biden's security failures and touted her own plan to address the ongoing migrant crisis.

Haley joined "The Faulkner Focus" in April 2023 from Del Rio, Texas, ahead of her planned press conference with Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas.

"What I'd say to President Biden is, shame on you. Shame on you because you are putting every single American at risk. This is a national security threat… this is your job, your job is to protect the American people. You're not doing it, you don't deserve to be president," Haley said, adding that what she's witnessed has been a "dereliction of duty."

In December, Haley said during a town hall, "I truly have run out of things to say about the border. This is a dereliction of duty. It's horrific to see what's happening on the southern border and the northern border," said Haley. "Securing the border is job No. 1, priority No. 1."

Nikki Haley waded into the controversy surrounding Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's mysterious ailment and hospitalization, but stopped short of joining other Republican calls for his firing.

"I think Biden should be fired," Haley declared when asked about Austin. "This is unbelievable that we have a situation like this."

"When I had a crisis in South Carolina, if we were dealing with anything and I had to deal with my adjutant general, I was on the phone with him every day twice a day," Haley said.

Haley said she had a problem with Biden "not talking to his secretary of defense every single day/"

"Secondly, is there not enough connection that he didn’t each know he was put in the hospital in intensive care at that?" she asked.

Haley added that Biden was making America "very vulnerable," and putting the country "at risk."

President Biden, the National Security Council and top Pentagon leaders - including Austin’s deputy, Kathleen Hicks - were kept in the dark for days that Austin had been taken to the hospital’s intensive care unit for treatment on New Year’s. 

When asked about national security policies and how she will put America first by an audience member, Haley said, "It's a great question. And, you know, for anybody that questions why we should care about Ukraine, that's a legitimate question for you to ask."

She went on, "The problem is no one is giving you the answer. And I blame Biden for all of that. He should always tell Americans why we're doing what we're doing, the reason we care about Ukraine. And I'll be the first one to say I don't think we should give any country friend or foe cash because you can't follow it. You can't hold it accountable. I don't think we need to put troops on the ground in Ukraine."

Haley alleged on the GOP debate stage in August 2023 that Russian President Vladimir Putin killed Wagner mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin. Then, she tore into GOP opponent, Vivek Ramaswamy, for "choosing a murderer" over pro-American Ukraine.

In the past, Haley has said that Putin and other autocrats know Joe Biden is "the weakest president in history." She believes that if leaders want to take advantage of a time in history to invade places like Ukraine, now is the time as Biden is soft.

"[N]one of this would be happening if Afghanistan wouldn't have been the crisis that it was, but what you're seeing is Russia and all the dictators are seeing an opportunity that this is the weakest president that America has ever had," Haley said in February 2022. 

Additionally, Haley has claimed that aiding Ukraine is vital to U.S. interests.

In March 2023, Haley said, "The Russian government is a powerful dictatorship that makes no secret of its hatred of America. Unlike other anti-American regimes, it is attempting to brutally expand by force into a neighboring pro-American country. It also regularly threatens other American allies."

She continued, "America is far better off with a Ukrainian victory than a Russian victory, including avoiding a wider war."

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has pushed for strict controls at the southern border and has blamed President Biden for the ongoing migrants crisis.

During tonight's town hall, Haley told Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum that she told Donald Trump, "You shouldn't just do the border wall" during his presidency.

"You should do more than that," she added.

Haley was the first 2024 candidate to visit the border in early 2023, where she unveiled her plan to fix the border crisis. 

My plan calls for implementing a national E-Verify program, defunding sanctuary cities, stopping handouts to illegal immigrants, and firing Biden's new IRS agents and hiring 25,000 new Border Patrol and ICE agents."

Her plan would also restore the "Remain-in-Mexico" policy -- which kept migrants in Mexico while their immigration hearings proceeded, instead of releasing them into the U.S. Republicans have credited that policy with reducing the pull factors which drew migrants north. 

She has also been highly critical of Biden’s handling of the crisis and has blamed him for his rhetoric.

"Never forget that Joe Biden created this crisis. He urged migrants to ‘surge’ the border," she said in May, referring to remarks Biden made as a presidential primary candidate.

Fox News' Gabriele Regalbuto contributed to this report.

Politics rarely comes out as all the commentators expect and nowhere is this truer than in the Republican and Democratic primary processes that starts with the Iowa caucuses.

There should be no surprise, however, that former president Donald Trump will win the Iowa caucus – he has a commanding lead among the conservative electorate there and the process of a caucus benefits the activists who come out and organize for this multi-hour event of mass persuasion. He is scoring record leads in the Des Moines Register poll.

The big question is what is going to happen with the remaining Trump opponents and whether Iowa will shrink the field even further. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis started this primary season with all of the advantages of early momentum, a big electoral win in his home state, and great funding and yet seems to be limping to the finish line. 

If he finishes a strong second, he could revive his campaign; if he finishes third, I would expect him to drop out. He has both the most to win and the most to lose in this primary.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has the most to win and little to lose here. She was never expected to do well in Iowa though she has been showing consistent momentum month after month. The polls place her in a close third place and that kind of finish would set her up for New Hampshire. If she finishes second instead, she would get a huge boost, especially if DeSantis drops out and either endorses her or refrains from siding with any of the candidates.

The 2024 GOP presidential hopefuls are stirring up tension during election season, giving former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley heat for her economic record.

Haley’s campaign website positively highlights her accomplishments during her time as governor. The “unemployment rate hit a 15-year low, it saw over $20 billion in new capital investment and” [Haley’s] administration announced new jobs in every county in the state,” the site reads.

The site also notes that Haley “cut taxes, nixed burdensome government regulations, and made small businesses a state priority.”

Former President Trump’s campaign team, however, criticized Haley in a release on his campaign website, alleging that she has a “troublesome record” and assigned her a new nickname to show for it: “Nikki New Taxes.” 

“The truth is finally coming out about Nikki Haley’s troublesome record showing her total disdain for the working-class and a willingness to sellout to lobbyist parasites," the release by Steven Cheung, Trump spokesperson read. "She pushed for a WHOPPING 60% increase in the state gas tax in South Carolina after promising voters she would never do so."

"She also voted for an unconscionable 20% increase in the state sales tax, making her the enemy of the working-class and an ally of lobbyist cronies taking advantage of impressionable politicians looking for their approval," Cheung added.

Haley has also received backlash from her other GOP opponents like Ron DeSantis, over working to recruit Bluestar Silicones, a company that is Chinese-owned, which received $600,000 in incentives along with 20 acres of land in South Carolina. The Florida governor said that Haley has been “very weak on China.”

Haley spokesperson Ken Farnaso clapped back at DeSantis’ remarks during an interview with Fox News Digital, arguing that "Every governor running for president tried to recruit Chinese businesses to their state. Nikki Haley did it ten years ago.”

He added that the Florida governor “recruited Chinese companies and gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in subsidies to Jink Solar, a Chinese company.” He also labeled DeSantis as “a hypocritical phony.” 

While former South Carolina governor has been taking heat herself for her fiscal moves, she has publicly criticized President Biden on his economic results.

The former governor slammed the president back in March, 2023, on his spending and labeled Biden as a “socialist president” for his budget proposal.

“He loves to spend everybody else’s money,” Haley told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. She then went on to say that Biden increases taxes and that the United States is borrowing money in order to make interest payments which is “not sustainable.”

Haley argued that South Carolina went on a “diet” from spending during her time as governor and that the country needs to do the same. She also said that Biden should’ve “clawed back the $500 billion of unspent COVID money” and “limit benefits for the wealthy, then you go further instead of cost of living increases do increases based on inflation.”  

Fox News’ Andrea Vacchiano, Andrew Mark Miller, Kyle Morris, Brianna Herlihy and staff, contributed to this report.

In February 2021, Nikki Haley warned that illegal immigration was hitting "crisis levels" in the wake of a number of reversals of key Trump-era policies by President Joe Biden. The former U.N. ambassador argued that the U.S. needs to take care of "Americans first."

Haley took to X, formerly known as Twitter, and said, "Biden reinstituted Obama’s catch and release policy releasing illegal immigrants  back into the US. Illegal immigration has hit crisis levels overwhelming Border Patrol facilities & maxing out community resources like COVID tests. We should be taking care of our Americans first."

While Haley was governor of South Carolina in 2015, she said at an Aspen Institute event "I think that what we have to remember, and I have always believed, is that we are a country of laws, that's what makes us strong."

"We have to always be a country of laws. So it's incredibly frustrating for a lot of people when they see the illegal immigrants being able to come across. It really is astonishing that after all of these years, D.C. hasn't figured out how to build a wall. It really is, after all of what they spend."

In August 2023, she said during an interview with Fox News Digital, "When it comes to the cartels, we should treat them like the terrorists that they are." 

She added, "I would send special operations in there and eliminate them just like we eliminated ISIS and make sure that they know there's no place for them."

In February, 2023, Nikki Haley announced that she would be running for president, seeking the Republican nomination for the 2024 election. Haley is the former governor of South Carolina.

Born in Bamberg, South Carolina, Haley has long been viewed by political pundits as a potential GOP presidential contender.

“America is not past our prime, it's just that our politicians are past theirs," Haley said in her first campaign speech earlier this year, as the crowd chanted "USA" and "Nikki."

While polls indicate Haley is an underdog compared to former President Donald Trump, Haley has a history of winning tough elections and saw a small boost in the primary polls following the first GOP debate.

In 2004, Haley defeated the state’s longest-serving state House member in the GOP primary on her way to winning a state legislative seat. And six years later, she topped a congressman, the state’s lieutenant governor, and the attorney general in the Republican gubernatorial primary, ahead of her general election victory.

She has been the only female on the main stage at the GOP presidential debates this year.

In a review from of the first debate, Fox News host Howard Kurtz said, "Nikki Haley came off as sensible and reasonable–but passionate on foreign policy–yet that may not be what the party wants this cycle."

In an interview with Sean Hannity after the first debate, Haley said "What I do believe is you're going to have Donald Trump spend more time in a courtroom next year — not through anything outside of they're weaponizing government against him — but he's going to spend more time in a courtroom than he is campaigning."

"I served with him, I was proud to serve with him, I agree with him on most issues and he's my friend," Haley continued. "But the reality is we cannot afford Joe Biden."

Haley is the daughter of immigrants from India, Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa. She was the first first female governor of the Palmetto State and the nation’s first female governor of Asian American heritage.

Following her tenure as governor of South Carolina, Haley served in Trump's administration as the U.S. ambassador to the UN, leaving at the end of 2018 on good terms with the former president.

Fox News' Paul Steinhauser and Ronn Blitzer contributed reporting.

Nikki Haley has maintained a hawkish view on TikTok, the popular but controversial video app owned by Chinese parent company ByteDance that is viewed by many as a national security threat.

She has advocated banning TikTok in the U.S. because of the dangers posed by the Chinese Communist Party stemming from data spying concerns.

"“The reason we want to ban TikTok — and yes, I think we need to ban it — is because it’s an app that actually goes and has access to your contacts, to your financial information, to your camera, to your recorder, to everything. It’s infiltration; we know that," Haley told Fox News in November.

She clashed with her opponent, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, during a debate that month, blasting him for utilizing TikTok as part of his campaign strategy.

Ramaswamy had referenced Haley's daughter use of the app.

“Leave my daughter out of your voice,” Haley responded. “You’re just scum.”

GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley's short tenure with Boeing has become a question for her to answer in the 2024 Republican primary.

Haley first took a board seat with the airplane manufacturer after leaving the Trump administration, but left the seat within the first year of being on the board over objecting to a potential government bailout.

The former ambassador's presidential opponents, such as entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy during December's presidential debate, have criticized Haley over her former Boeing board membership and relationship with the company.

Haley responded to Ramaswamy's debate criticism by pointing to her exit from the board over the potential bailout.

“I did serve on the board of Boeing. I did a lot of work with Boeing when I was governor, they were a great partner to me,” Haley said on the debate stage in December. “I served for 10 months and then when they decided after COVID that they wanted to go for a corporate bailout, I’ve never supported corporate bailout, so I respectfully stepped back and got off the board.”

DES MOINES, Iowa – Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is using a snowstorm in Iowa to take aim at GOP nomination rival Nikki Haley.

After Haley canceled an event Monday morning in Sioux City, in the northwest corner of the state due to a snowstorm, Ramaswamy took to social media to spotlight that "I'm headed to Sioux City for our event right now. We’re not canceling."

Ramaswamy, the multimillioinaire biotech entrepreneur and first-time candidate who for months has been a very vocal critic of Haley, charged that the former South Carolina governor who later served as ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration, scrapped her event in Sioux City to "avoid embarrassment."

Click here to read more at FoxNews.com.

Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

Nikki Haley has clashed repeatedly with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, one of her Republican opponents in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, including in a heated moment during a debate last November.

The clash happened when Ramaswamy took aim at Haley's pledge to ban the short-form video hosting service TikTok – which is a subsidiary of a Chinese-owned company – over national security concerns.

"She made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time," Ramaswamy argued. "So you might want to take care of your family first before preaching to anyone else."

Haley quickly snapped back.

"Leave my daughter out of your voice," she told Ramaswamy, later calling him "scum."

Haley told Fox News' "America's Newsroom" the next day that her response was "showing a lot of restraint."

Fox News' Elizabeth Heckman contributed to this report.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley have traded barbs on the campaign trail in recent weeks as calls grow for Christie to drop out in order to consolidate support around Haley in the push to defeat former President Trump.

Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu recently told Fox News that Christie’s numbers are “falling” and that Christie can be a “hero” by dropping out and putting Haley “over the top.”

In an interview with the Des Moines register this week, expressed frustration about Christie’s decision to continue staying in the race.

“I think it’s left everybody scratching their heads, saying, ‘You know, you say you want to defeat Trump, yet you might be the one person that helps him win?’” Haley said.

Christie has turned up the attacks in recent weeks against Haley including a jab at her recent controversial comment where she told New Hampshire voters they can “correct” the Iowa results.

Christie has previously argued that Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have not successfully “made the case” against Trump.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has sparred with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the two have battled for second place in the Republican primary race so far.

The two hopefuls’ campaigns have gone at it as the candidates have switched places as the alternative to former President Trump over the courts of the primary race so far.

In October, the two China hawks accused each other of being soft on China, with Haley accusing DeSantis of having “aggressively recruited Chinese companies to Florida.”

Recently Haley accused DeSantis of campaigning with the “most anti-Israel Republic there is” after DeSantis was joined by Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., on the campaign trail. 

This week, after DeSantis compared her to Hillary Clinton, Haley accused the Florida governor of "getting desperate" and is "lying because he's losing."

"My record speaks for itself, and it shows that we're surging, and that's why they're giving us all the attention." 

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley raised a few eyebrows in early January from conservatives, after the former South Carolina governor made a comment about changing "personalities" while discussing the upcoming Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary. 

"The structure of it is really amazing," Haley told an interviewer on a local Iowa PBS station last week of the GOP primary process. "Iowa starts it. You change personalities, you go into New Hampshire."

The presidential candidate was discussing whether she would support changing the order in which states vote in the Republican primary as Democrats did for their presidential primary process. She often remarks on how each state has its own personality. 

At a recent event in Iowa, Haley called Iowans "patriotic," "hardworking" and "very careful" while saying New Hampshire voters wear their "feelings on their sleeves," and South Carolinians can "kick you with a smile." 

Fox News' Brie Stimson contributed to this report.

Nikki Haley’s husband, William Michael Haley, has recently made headlines due to a 2012 book written by the former South Carolina governor that’s made its way back into the public eye.

A Vox senior politics correspondent posted an excerpt from Haley’s book, “Can’t Is Not an Option,” which mentions how “Bill” became Michael Haley, South Carolina First Gentleman.

“Nikki Haley renamed her husband,” the tweet stated along with the excerpt.

The piece gives background context of how Haley’s husband’s name was changed.

Haley said that after they had been dating, she looked at him one time and asked what his name was. “’You know it’s Bill,’ he said puzzled.”

“You just don’t look like a Bill. What’s your whole name?” She asked. “William Michael,” he told her.

From that point forward Haley and her friends, who also became his friends, began calling him Michael.

The couple met at Clemson University, got married in 1996, and they have two children, Rena and Nalin Haley. Michael is a combat veteran and he became First Gentleman of South Carolina in 2011, according to Haley’s campaign website.

Fox News Digital's Paul Steinhauser and Joe Schoffstall contributed to this report.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has been careful with her criticism of former President Donald Trump, but has also taken some shots at the former president as they battle for the Republican nomination.

Haley served in Trump’s cabinet as U.N. ambassador between 2017 and 2018, and has praised his presidency on multiple occasions. 

Before she announced her candidacy for president, she had said in 2021 that Trump’s actions since Election Day “will be judged harshly by history”

"It’s deeply disappointing. And it’s a real shame, because I am one who believes our country made some truly extraordinary gains in the last four years. President Trump and Republicans deserve great credit for that," she said. "We should not shy away from our accomplishments."

More recently, she criticized Trump for his statements about foreign leaders, an area where Haley tends to be more hawkish.

“I think that his policies were good,” Haley said in Iowa, according to the Des Moines Register. “But if you look at what's happening now, the part that bothers me is our national security is at risk. And what's he doing? He's praising dictators.”

As the primary race forges ahead, it is likely that Haley will become sharper in her criticism as she seeks to knock Trump off the number one spot. At the same time, she has not ruled out being his vice presidential pick, although she has emphasized that she is in the race to win it.

"I have said from the very beginning I don’t play for second. It’s offensive for anybody to think that I would do all of this to play for second. And so I have said that. I will continue to say that. If people aren’t satisfied with that, I don’t know what else to say," Haley said.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley has repeatedly taken aim at President Biden for his policies and has called for a new generation of leaders, specifically in the White House.

Haley, who is taking on both the 81-year-old incumbent president and 77-year-old former President Donald Trump, has raised several issues throughout her campaign that she believes are a result of the Biden administrations failure to do its job adequately.

Some of those issues include immigration and securing the border , national security, education, and crime.

In December, during an appearance on Fox News Channel, Haley said Biden is “putting his head in the sand” when it comes to handling foreign threats.

She also said in November that polls reflected she would “crush” Biden in the general election if she’s selected as the GOP nominee.

In a December ad released by the Haley campaign, the former South Carolina governor accused the president of being “too old” for the job of president.

“I’ll just say it: Biden’s too old,” Haley said in the ad. “And Congress is the most exclusive nursing home in America.”

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley found herself in muddy water last month after she made questionable comments about the U.S. Civil War, forcing the former South Carolina governor to do some cleaning up.

Haley faced backlash from the White House and fellow Republicans on the campaign trail after she declined to mention slavery as the reason for sparking the Civil War during a town hall event in December.

"I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run — the freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do," she said in response to a voter who had asked her to address the “cause” of the Civil War.

"I mean, I think it all comes down to the role of government," she added. "We need to have capitalism. We need to have economic freedom. We need to make sure that we do all things so that individuals have the liberties so that they can have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do or be anything they want to be without government getting in the way."

The voter responded that he was shocked she didn’t mention the word "slavery."

"What do you want me to say about slavery?" Haley asked. "Next question."

Haley has since clarified that she believes the Civil War was sparked by slavery but that the "bigger issue" was determining the role of government in people's lives.

Haley also addressed the backlash she received over the comments during a recent appearance on "Cavuto Live.”

"The first thing I should have said was slavery," Haley. "I completely agree with that. When you grow up in the South, slavery is a given. Like when you think of the Civil War, you know it was about slavery. That's never been in question."

Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar and Madeline Coggins contributed to this update.

Former President Donald Trump remains the commanding frontrunner in the GOP race for the White House, but Nikki Haley, who served in his administration as the U.S. ambassador to the UN, has worked to close the polling gap.

Haley, the second-highest polling Republican presidential candidate in many surveys, witnessed a boost in support last fall after receiving several big endorsements.

Haley has enjoyed the momentum in the polls thanks in part to well-received performances in the first three GOP presidential primary debates. She has also picked up a stream of strong endorsements as of recent, including one from Americans for Prosperity Action, the political wing of the influential and deep-pocketed fiscally conservative network founded by the billionaire Koch Brothers.

Haley has leapfrogged DeSantis for second place in New Hampshire and in her home state, which holds the first southern contest. She has also pulled even with DeSantis in some of the latest polls in Iowa, whose caucuses kick off the GOP nominating calendar on January 15.

But Haley, despite the rise in polling ahead of her other challengers, remains far behind Trump, who’s making his third straight White House run.

Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this update.

Former United States Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will appear in an exclusive town hall event on Fox News Channel tonight beginning at 6 p.m. ET for one hour. Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will host the only female candidate running for POTUS.

The town hall is the first of a series of three events with other Republican presidential candidates ahead of the Iowa caucuses next week. Tomorrow at the same time, Ron DeSantis will sit down with Baier and MacCallum for a town hall, and Wednesday evening beginning at 9 p.m. ET, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump will also meet with the co-moderators. Each town hall will feature a live audience.

Viewers can tune into Fox News Channel to watch the live event. Additionally, it can be live streamed on FOX Nation, FOX News Media's streaming platform, as well as FOXNews.com and FOXBusiness.com.

Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley had a number of stand-out moments during her appearance at an Iowa town hall hosted by CNN on January 5.

Haley addressed how she plans to overtake former President Trump, the clear front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination, as well as addressing recent controversial statements she made on the campaign trail regarding slavery and the Iowa caucuses.

When asked how she planned to overtake Trump, who continues to hold a commanding lead in the polls despite Haley's recent surge in New Hampshire and Iowa, the former South Carolina governor pointed to how many of the same polls indicate she would triumph in a one-on-one matchup with President Biden.

"I defeat Biden by 17 points," Haley said, referencing one recent poll and noting it showed she would perform better than Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Republican candidate, in a hypothetical November contest against Biden. "If you win by double digits, you go into Washington with a mandate… It is time to move past President Trump."

Fox News' Brandon Gillespie and Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.

After Nikki Haley ran for South Carolina’s 116th governor in 2010 and won the election, she advocated for Americans’ rights and signed multiple pieces of legislation on key issues affecting the United States that became law.

Some of the bills she signed and issues she focused on included implementing voter ID, fighting second amendment rights, aiding veterans, reforming the United Nations, being an ally for Israel, contributed to repealing the Iran deal, standing for human rights and pushing back against China, Russia and North Korea, according to her campaign website.

The campaign website says that she passed ethics reform and “required lawmakers to put their votes ‘on the record,’” as a law. 

Haley also focused on education and protecting the life of the unborn. She signed a charter school bill to expand school choice, removed the federal government’s Common Core standards and signed legislation regarding abortion such as the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act and the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.

In 2011, she signed an immigration law that cracked down hard on illegal immigrants. South Carolina sued the Obama administration for an executive order that allowed temporary legal status to millions of illegal immigrants.

In 2014, Haley was reelected to serve as governor for South Carolina.

The state chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business endorsed Haley during her re-election. They praised Haley for cutting taxes on small businesses, according to ABC Columbia.

Haley signed the South Carolina Brewery Bill in 2014 that “cut restrictions” and allowed “small businesses to continue driving,” the state’s economy, Haley said. The law permitted breweries in South Carolina to serve food and alcohol in their establishment, according to The Berkley Observer.

Fox News is welcoming GOP candidate and former governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, for an exclusive town hall event on Monday evening. The event will run for one hour beginning at 6 p.m. ET.

Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will host the GOP presidential candidate in Iowa ahead of the Iowa caucuses on January 15. Haley will receive questions from the co-moderators in front of a live audience. Fox News announced women's issues will be a confirmed focus topic for the town hall featuring the former UN ambassador.

In August 2023, Baier and MacCallum kicked off the debate season and hosted the first GOP presidential showdown between candidates including Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy and more.

On Tuesday evening, Baier and MacCallum will host DeSantis for a town hall also in Iowa. Women's issues are expected this evening as well. In addition to the two town halls, Fox News hosts will also welcome GOP frontrunner and former President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening.