As Fox News pointed out last year, Donald Trump's four indictments have made him the first former president to face criminal charges.

However, one of his Republican rivals just announced that Trump will have to wait for a pardon if she's elected.  

Haley says she will let Trump's cases "play out" before pardoning him

According to Breitbart, that statement came from former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley during a CNN town hall event in New Hampshire on Thursday.

It came in response to a question from host Jake Tapper, who asked if she would preemptively pardon Trump "without waiting for a conviction the way that Gerald Ford did for Richard Nixon."

"No," she replied. "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," the former United Nations ambassador said of Trump.

"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," Haley continued.

" The last thing we need is an 80-year-old president sitting in jail"

However, when Tapper asked whether she would pardon Trump should the former president be convicted, Haley said that she would.

Nikki Haley says she would pardon Donald Trump:

“The last thing we need is an 80-year-old president sitting in jail because that is just going to further divide our country.” @jeffstorobinsky
pic.twitter.com/U4MEhh4xD0

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) January 19, 2024

"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," Haley declared.

She went on to argue that a post-conviction pardon for Trump would help to "bring the country back together" and "be healing for the country."

Trump: Haley isn't "presidential timber"

However, most polls suggest that any talk of Haley pardoning Trump is purely theoretical given how they consistently show him beating her by wide margins.

Meanwhile, The Hill reported that Trump recently "threw cold water" on the idea of selecting Haley as his running mate.

The website quoted him as telling supporters at a rally in New Hampshire on Friday that the former United Nations ambassador "is not presidential timber."