Nicolle Wallace has been around politics for a long time, and Republican politics specifically. So she's seen her share of politicians debase themselves at the altar of Donald Trump over the years, from Ted Cruz to Marco Rubio to Lindsey Graham, and more recently with J.D. Vance and Elise Stefanik, among others. But the recent example of Nikki Haley seems to have genuinely caught her by surprise. It should not have.

Even a cursory examination of Nikki Haley's career made the political calculation inevitable for her blind ambition. Go against Trump right now and alienate his base, which is the Republican Party. She would never marginalize herself in this way, so she had to bend the knee and kiss his ring, just like the rest of them.

Source: Mediaite

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley endorsed Donald Trump following a bitter GOP primary in which the former president repeatedly demeaned her.

“I will be voting for Trump,” she declared on Wednesday. “Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me.”

Haley was a harsh critic of Trump, under whom she served as ambassador to the U.N. However, with her campaign over, she is following in the footsteps of so many former Republican challengers to Trump by backing her former tormentor.

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace broke the news to viewers on Deadline: White House, where NBC News Correspondent Vaughn Hillyard reviewed some of the history between Haley and Trump.

As Hilyard listed off a litany of examples of friction between Haley and Trump in the primary fight, even his unfitness for office, she now joins the likes of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio who will support Trump. To Nicole Wallace it all seemed a bit bizarre:

WALLACE: We need shrinks and cult experts to explain this because what you’re reporting doesn’t make a lick of sense to me, and it’s so recent. I mean, J.D. Vance, in 2015, said something similar. But for her and her husband to both have been feuding publicly with him just days and weeks before endorsing him is inexplicable to me at a human level.

HILLYARD: I think it’s power. And I think in American politics, access to power and a party that you identify with is a future. And I think that we have a great share of individuals that have proved this time and again, that staying closely associated to Donald Trump is a guarantee that you are relevant within politics if you choose to remain in politics.

WALLACE: It’s unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Seems all too believable to me, but what do I know?