Nikki Haley focuses on crime, education, border security & economy ahead of Super Tuesday

WASHINGTON (7News) — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley is continuing her campaign swing through the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area ahead of Super Tuesday primaries.

On Friday, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former South Carolina governor rallied supporters in Washington, D.C.

7News Reporter Nick Minock interviewed Haley one-on-one ahead of her rally at the Madison Hotel. The first question 7News asked the presidential candidate is what would she do to help address violent crime in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Fairfax County, Seattle and other American cities and counties?

“People are worried about letting their children ride their bikes down the street,” said Haley. “They're worried about getting carjacked going to a restaurant. It's a problem. The first thing we need to do is not just say we support law enforcement, but act on it. We need to stop any conversations of defunding the police. We need to make sure our prosecutors are prosecuting according to the law, and we need to make sure our judges are holding people accountable.”

“Here in the District, Maryland and Northern Virginia we've [recently] seen three high-profile crimes, violent crimes, perpetrated by people who are in the country illegally-Do you think that people who are in this country illegally, they commit crime, should they be deported?” 7News asked Haley.

“Absolutely,” said Haley. “We have to make sure we take this seriously. When I was governor, we passed the toughest illegal immigration law in the country. President Obama sued us over it and right now we have a completely open border. What we need to do is take what I did in South Carolina and go national with it: Do a national e-verified program where businesses have to prove that the people they hire are in this country legally. We need to defund sanctuary cities, we need to put 25,000 Border Patrol and ICE agents on the ground and let them do their job. We need to go back to the remain in Mexico policy so that no one steps foot on US soil, and instead of catch and release, we need to go to catch and deport. That's the only way to stop it.”

Haley added the U.S. and American cities are having to pour resources into addressing a surge of illegal immigrants which is taking away resources from schools and children.

“We have to advocate for our kids,” Haley told 7News. “Only 31% of eighth graders in our country are proficient in reading.”

Ahead of her visit to Washington, D.C. on Friday, presidential candidate Nikki Haley visited Virginia --- which is ground zero for controversial education issues.

“We've got to go back to the basics, reading, math, science, history,” Haley told 7News. “We want parents to have as much control over their children's education as possible. I will make sure that everything is transparent. Parents shouldn't wonder what's being said or taught to their child in the classroom.”

This week, more Loudoun County parents spoke out about the Virginia school district’s policy that allows students to use school bathrooms and locker rooms based on gender identity.

READ | More Loudoun County parents ask school board to repeal bathroom policy

“Do you support school districts allowing students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice at school?” 7News asked Haley.

“No, because we need to make sure students are safe. What we did in South Carolina, boys went into boys bathrooms, girls went into girls bathrooms, and anyone else could use a private bathroom if they needed to," said Haley.

“I think strong girls become strong women, strong women become strong leaders. None of that happens if you have biological boys playing in girl sports,” Haley added. “None of that happens if you go in, you're allowing anyone to go into any bathroom the way they want. We have to go back and start focusing on safety, on education.”

On the topic of school safety, 7News asked Haley about her thoughts on Loudoun County Superintendent Aaron Spence delaying notification to parents of a string of student overdoses late last year and if she thinks schools across the country should be required to notify parents of student overdoses involving fentanyl.

“When this happens in a school the reason that parents need to know this, the reason that families need to know this is because a lot of times this can be from someone who gets Ritalin online or someone who gets another medicine online for a class if they share it with students. It puts everybody in danger. It allows parents to have a conversation with their kids, remind them not to take these pills from anybody else,” Haley told 7News.

Haley said that stronger border security measures would help halt fentanyl from pouring into the United States.

“It’s a crisis, we had more fentanyl come across the border last year that would kill every single American,” Haley added. “The number one cause of death for adults 18 to 45 --- fentanyl. And don't think for a second China doesn't know what they're doing when they send it over And the other side of that is we saw Joe Biden and Donald Trump at the border yesterday. Both of those were photo ops and frustrating because Joe Biden has had years to take care of this. And he's only made it worse. But Donald Trump on top of that, when Congress had the chance a couple of weeks ago to pass a bill on the border. What'd he do? He said don't pass anything until after the general election because it would hurt him. We can't wait one more day. That bill wasn't strong enough, but Congress needed to get in a room and continue to work on it until they passed a strong border bill. We can't wait on this. This is a dangerous situation, whether it's fentanyl, whether it's crime, whether it's the resources it's stealing from us. We've got to close the border.”

7News asked Haley how she would reduce the cost of living for Americans and help their paychecks have more buying power.

“First of all, that's why we need an accountant in the White House,” Haley answered. “That's what I can bring to the White House. But more than that, I think, look at the differences between me and Donald Trump. Donald Trump put us $8 trillion in debt in just four years. He says that was COVID. That was less than 20%. I want to start paying down our debt. He grew government. I want to reduce the size of government. He didn't clean out our agencies. I want to clean out our agencies and get them mission-focused. And all the Republicans that followed suit with all this wasteful spending. We want to make sure we stop the spending, stop the borrowing eliminate their pet projects that they opened back up, and I'll veto any spending bill that doesn't go back to pre-COVID levels. And then we'll take those federal programs and send them down to the state so we can reduce the size of the federal government. We want to cut taxes on the middle class so that they can breathe. We want to make sure that we eliminate the federal gas and diesel tax in this country and we want small business tax cuts to be permanent. Those are the things we need to focus on to get our economy moving again. You can't continue to grow government and act like it's gonna go away. Right now. We're $34 trillion in debt. We're having to borrow money just to make our interest payments. China owns some of that debt. And for the first time, we're paying more in interest payments than we are in our defense budget. You know, who notices that? Russia, China and Iran. It's a national security issue. We've got to start getting fiscally responsible again.”

Haley encouraged Virginians and voters in Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard.

ALSO READ | What to expect in the District of Columbia's GOP presidential primary

“Do you want more of the same or do you want to go in a new direction?” Haley asked. “More of the same has been bloated government, wasteful spending, isolationism when it comes to national security, and anger and division. Something new is the fact we go back to being fiscally responsible. We go back to peace through strength. We go back to the fact that we can strongly disagree and not hate each other over it. And we go back to a government that works for the people instead of the people working for [the] government. That's what we could have. In a general election, you're given a choice. In a primary, you make your choice. I hope everybody will go out and use this opportunity and blessing that we have in America to go make their choice on Tuesday.”