Should you vote for Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP presidential primary? This author will not be.

On today’s show, I thought it would be best to let the Candace Owens audience know why that is — and how some behind-the-scenes interactions with Haley and her team helped craft my decision. The goal is not to sway you one way or the other, but to provide you with details that can help guide your decision-making process.

The former United Nations ambassador announced her candidacy for the presidency on Tuesday. Her first campaign video can be seen here:

Get excited! Time for a new generation.

Let’s do this! 👊 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/BD5k4WY1CP

— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 14, 2023

The conservative choices thus far are former President Donald J. Trump and Haley. It is a strong likelihood that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will also enter the race, although he has not officially made an announcement.

Haley will not be getting my vote. I want to make clear, it has nothing to do with any sort of personal grievance. I met her once, and she was very nice to me. However, as part of my job, I am often privy to having a more intimate look at politicians and those working on their campaigns. Whenever possible, I try to share those experiences on my podcast for your benefit.

Haley reportedly charged as high as $200,000 for a speaker’s fee after she left the Trump administration. Those who dealt with her have expressed their frustration that she never had any flexibility with that large sum of money.

A few years ago, I was invited to a dinner where Nikki Haley was the keynote speaker. This was a high-dollar donor event. Depending on how much you paid, attendees could partake in privileges such as asking Haley a question or posing for a photo with her. The more you paid, the more up close and private it was supposed to be.

What I saw during Haley’s speech was a polished professional speaker — who stuck to her script verbatim. It almost seemed a little too rehearsed, not authentic. The donors in attendance, however, loved it.

When audience members asked her questions, she had specific answers that seemed pre-written, almost as if she knew the questions in advance. Well, a gentleman sitting at my dinner table, who happened to be hosting the event, confirmed my suspicions. Indeed, Haley’s staff required all questions be submitted far in advance. Donors were not allowed to go off script.

Instantly, it was apparent that something was bothering the gentleman sitting next to me. He explained how it took a lot of money to bring Haley to the event and how her team had strict requirements, including dictating what questions could be asked.

It turns out the last question this gentleman asked — a question relevant to a story about Trump and NATO which broke that day — was not on Haley’s radar. Her team swooped in afterwards and completely undressed him for going off script. Keep in mind, this was a man who helped coordinate the event.

That confirmed my intuition — she was not being authentic with her donors. It seemed evident she was preparing for a presidential run. My predictions were proven true this week when she made her announcement.

Personally, a polished politician is not the candidate I would like to support. I like unscripted politicians who are comfortable speaking their minds and engaging in real conversations with reporters, their colleagues, and the public. In fact, that is what I always loved about Trump.

When I interviewed him, his team never told me what questions to ask or avoid. Whether you love him or hate him, you cannot deny he was authentically Trump. It was refreshing because that’s a character trait so many politicians seem to lack.

Unfortunately, it has turned me into a cynic about politics. You can never be entirely sure when a politician is giving you a straight answer.

Now, these are my gut instincts and my own personal experiences with Haley. You should not necessarily let this column determine whether you will cast your vote for Haley or not. You might completely disagree with my stance. My job is, in part, to provide you with as much knowledge as I can about these candidates so that you can make an informed decision at the ballot box.

An American man being treated for prostate cancer suddenly developed an Irish accent, possibly because of his disease.

According to an article in the medical journal BMJ Case Reports, the unnamed man was being treated for prostate cancer at Duke University Medical Center. During his treatment, he suddenly started speaking in an Irish brogue, despite never having been to Ireland nor having immediate family from the country. Researchers diagnosed him with foreign accent syndrome, possibly triggered by an immune system response.

“A man in his 50s with metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, receiving androgen deprivation therapy and abiraterone acetate/prednisone, presented with an uncontrollable ‘Irish brogue’ accent despite no Irish background, consistent with foreign accent syndrome (FAS),” BMJ Case Reports noted. “He had no neurological examination abnormalities, psychiatric history or MRI of the brain abnormalities at symptom onset. Imaging revealed progression of his prostate cancer, despite undetectable prostate-specific antigen levels.”

Foreign accent syndrome is a rare condition in which patients suddenly develop speech patterns different from their native accent, without having picked up another accent from its native place. The condition usually results from a stroke, but it can also be caused by head trauma, migraines, a developmental disorder, lesions in the brain, or a mental illness. In most cases, the change is temporary and can be fixed with intensive speech therapy, but in some cases, the change is permanent, The Guardian reported.

“His accent was uncontrollable, present in all settings and gradually became persistent,” the BMJ report stated.

The Guardian reported that the man had lived in England in his 20s, and had friends and distant family who were Irish, but had never actually been to the Emerald Isle, nor had he previously spoken in the Irish accent. He maintained the accent through about 20 months of treatment, the outlet reported.

“To our knowledge, this is the first case of FAS described in a patient with prostate cancer and the third described in a patient with malignancy,” the report stated.

One of the authors of the paper, Dr. Andrew Armstrong of Duke Medical Center’s Divisions of Medical Oncology and Urology, told Newsweek that because this phenomenon is so new, it is hard to find a cause for the patient’s FAS. “We don’t have a ‘smoking gun’ explanation in this case,” Armstrong said. “Other possibilities are psychological, although he did not have major issues with anxiety or depression and actually was fairly amused by this FAS development.”

“It is possible that this had a physical cause in his language center,” Armstrong added. “FAS can take many accent forms in different patients, and I assume prior knowledge of an accent is common. This is my first case personally. It is quite rare to see in oncology.”

The patient was diagnosed with small cell neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC), an aggressive form of cancer that targets the nervous and endocrine systems. The report concluded that foreign accent syndrome was a novel “presenting manifestation” of NEPC. The presentation of FAS was consistent with an underlying paraneoplastic neurological disorder (PND), an immune system reaction to a cancerous tumor where the cancer-fighting agent also attacks the brain or nervous system.

Unfortunately, the man’s condition only worsened. “Despite chemotherapy, his NEPC progressed resulting in multifocal brain metastases and a likely paraneoplastic ascending paralysis leading to his death,” the report stated.