Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley is backing a federal jury’s decision to make former President Donald Trump pay $83 million in damages to E. Jean Carroll for defamation.
But she said the matter shouldn’t disqualify him from running for president.
“I absolutely trust the jury, and I think that they made their decision based on the evidence,” Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, said Sunday on “Meet the Press.” “I just don’t think that should take him off the ballot.”
Ms. Haley is in a two-person race with Mr. Trump for the GOP nomination for president.
Mr. Trump won the first two contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and is well-positioned to win the nomination despite facing many legal hurdles.
The jury in Manhattan awarded Ms. Carroll $83.3 million on Friday, a mix of compensatory and punitive damages.
The trial focused on whether Mr. Trump defamed Ms. Carroll with remarks in 2019 criticizing the former magazine columnist after she publicly accused the then-president of raping her in a department store in 1996.
A previous jury found Mr. Trump liable for sex abuse, though not rape, and defamation for 2022 comments, and those findings carried over to the latest trial. A second jury had to decide how much more, if anything, Mr. Trump had to pay for the 2019 comments.
Pressed on the issue, Ms. Haley dismissed the idea that legal troubles make Mr. Trump unqualified to run.
“Anybody that wants to run can run, and I think that’s really important. We have seen a lot of people try and infringe on our freedoms and our democracy,” said Ms. Haley, a former U.N. ambassador in the Trump administration. “We can never let that happen. I don’t want a political party deciding who’s right and wrong.”
A Trump adviser, Jason Miller, posted a news story suggesting Ms. Haley “crossed the Rubicon” by defending the verdict.
“There is no point of return,” Mr. Miller posted on X. “Haley is politically finished for ‘24, ‘28, forever.”