Lawrence O’Donnell Claims That Republicans Believe Nikki Haley’s Blood Is “Poisoned”

Donald Trump advanced further in his bid to be the Republican Party's 2024 presidential candidate by defeating competitors in the Republican primary, including Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, and Vivek Ramaswamy, according to CNN. While covering Trump's victory in Iowa on election night, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell spoke after hosts Ari Melber and Jen Psaki had spoken about how the indictments against Trump had aided his gain of Republican support.

As reported by Mediate, Psaki stated, "[Trump] He was there more than he was in Iowa over the last week. Is that going to work for the Republican electorate? Seems pretty clearly from these entrance polls." O'Donnell continued, "The worst thing we’ve learned about the Republican primary electorate is not yet in these entrance poll questions tonight. CBS poll, their final poll before the Iowa caucuses, this is a national poll shows that 81% of Republican primary voters and caucus participants, 81% of those people, agree with Donald Trump that immigrants are poisoning the blood of this country. That means that 81% of the Republican primary electorate believe Nikki Haley has poisoned blood and is poisoning the blood of the United States."

He further added, "So, that as a roadblock for Nikki Haley is impossible. But it also shows you what you’re up against in any kind of campaign against voters like that, the convertibility of voters like that to anything other than the Trump view of the world is impossible. There’s no campaign ad, there’s no speech you can make. There’s no, you know, Republican who Chris Christie might be able to convince some of them. Not them. Not any of the 81%. Not one of them can be converted." Surpassing former South Carolina governor Haley, as per CNN Florida governor DeSantis will place second in the Iowa caucus. Trump has increased the pressure on his two opponents ahead of their race in New Hampshire the following week.

Before the caucuses on Sunday, Trump raised the bar very high for himself by asking volunteers in Des Moines to "see if we can get to 50%" support, a threshold that no other Republican contender has ever crossed. An estimated 120,000 Iowans braved the icy, below-freezing weather to participate in the caucus, despite the state's lower-than-usual attendance owing to weather-related issues. The majority of those caucused for a candidate who faces four criminal trials on 91 felony counts ranging from election meddling to hoarding sensitive materials. Three-quarters of Iowa caucus attendees believe the claims against Trump are political attempts to discredit him rather than justifiable efforts to look into allegations of wrongdoing, according to the AP's VoteCast poll.

In the National Election Pool entry survey, over two-thirds of participants (63%) said that Trump would still be eligible to lead the country even if found guilty of a crime; this is twice as many as those who stated the reverse (32%). Furthermore, Trump's popularity among white evangelicals increased dramatically from 22% in 2016 to 53% this time.