Hoover Institute senior fellow Victor Davis Hanson suggested Wednesday on Fox News that former President Donald Trump should “call up” former GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley in order to secure “unity” through votes, predicting the former president could win in the 2024 general election.
Hanson appeared on “Hannity” to discuss Haley dropping out of the Republican primary race following her significant loss to Trump on Super Tuesday. Haley notably declined to endorse Trump during her speech Wednesday, stating that the former president must now “earn the votes” from those within the GOP and “beyond” who don’t support him.
Fox News host Sean Hannity questioned the senior fellow on how he would advise Trump and if he would be able to pull in more voters beyond those who already support him. Hanson responded by laying out his predictions on what could bring Trump success and highlighted how Trump’s “enemies” are already “self-imploding.” (RELATED: MSNBC Data Guru Points Out Elephant In The Room About Nikki Haley Voters)
“What advice would you give him? What would you tell him to do? Beyond his base, doesn’t he need some independence? Do you think he can pull in these numbers we’re now seeing with African-Americans, Hispanic Americans [and] young people?” Hannity questioned.
“Absolutely, there’s a lot of people who want a reason to vote for Donald Trump, and they will vote for him. He’s shown he can be magnanimous, he has a sense of humor. He’s got to end the ad hominem. He’s now our last chance to save the country, and he’s got an obligation to all of us. And he has the ability to seek unity. I think he should even call up Nikki Haley and say, ‘You know what, we’ve had problems, but we’re going to need you.’ He needs those votes. I know it doesn’t make good politics, but he’s gotta campaign in 50 states. He’s gotta go to the inner-city, he’s gotta go to Mexican-American communities, he’s gotta go to everybody. I think he will do very well if he does that,” Hanson stated.
“He’s a different character of a different stature in 2016 and 2020. This election, Sean, is about — you’re either for civilization or you’re not — from what we’ve seen. And he represents the effort to save civilization, it really is that existential. And I think he can do it. All he has to do is appeal to unity and the better angels of our nature and unite the country in a way that I think he’s got the talent to do it. He doesn’t need to, to try to polarize his enemies, they’re self-imploding. They’re destroying themselves as we saw on MSNBC. All he has to do is talk for unity, talk about what he’s going to do — the agenda — and they’ll take care of themselves and their hatred.”
While Haley notably signed an agreement with the Republican National Committee (RNC) that she would endorse the eventual GOP candidate in order to debate on stage, she has declined to confirm if she would endorse Trump if he were to be chosen as the nominee. During a Sunday interview with NBC News, Haley deflected on abiding by her pledge, stating that the RNC was no longer “the same.”
Within a recent New York Times/Siena poll, data showed that Trump is currently leading in what would be considered strong Democratic key blocs, such as women, young adults, Latinos and Black voters. Although Biden once led among those groups during the 2020 election, it reportedly appears that voters are not satisfied with the president’s term as 47% now strongly disapprove of Biden’s handling of his job, data shows.