Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley discussed her stance on the possibility of pardoning former President Donald Trump during an interview with CNN anchor Jake Tapper on Thursday. Haley emphasized the importance of allowing Trump’s legal cases to proceed before considering a pardon if she were to be elected president and if Trump were to be convicted.

Tapper asked, “On accountability, if you become president and Donald Trump’s trials are still ongoing, would you preemptively pardon him without waiting for a conviction the way that Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon?”

Haley, who would have the authority to pardon Trump only for federal offenses if elected president, responded as follows:

“No. I think everything needs to play out. I think it’s important that that happens and I honestly think President Trump would want that to happen. If he wants to defend himself and prove that he has been treated, you know, the wrong way or whether it’s political, I think he would want to fight for that. You know, you only want to talk about a pardon after someone has been convicted, so I would assume that we’d let that play out, and I would think he would want that to play out.”

Tapper further probed, asking, “If he were convicted, would you then pardon him?”

Haley replied, “I said I would pardon him with the simple reason of, you know, when you talk about a pardon, someone’s already been found guilty, but for me, the last thing we need is an 80-year-old president sitting in jail because that’s just going to further divide our country.” She argued, “This is no longer about whether he’s innocent or guilty, this is about the fact how do we bring the country back together, and I am determined to make sure all of this division, all of this chaos goes away, and I think a pardon for him would make all of that go away and I think it would be healing for the country.”

As of now, Donald Trump is facing four separate legal cases, including charges in New York related to allegedly falsifying business records, federal charges concerning the retention and handling of government documents, and two indictments, one federal and one state, linked to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

A recent poll conducted by the American Research Group revealed that Nikki Haley and Donald Trump are tied at 40% in New Hampshire, which will be holding its primary this coming Tuesday.

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