Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, will not launch a White House bid if former President Donald Trump chooses to run.
Haley made the revelation while speaking to reporters Monday during a visit to South Carolina State University after being asked whether she would support the 45th commander-in-chief if he mounted a 2024 run.
“Yes,” she said.
Asked how that would impact her own presidential ambitions, which are well known, Haley admitted that the former president would impact her decision to run.
“I would not run if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about it. That’s something that we’ll have a conversation about, at some point, if that decision is something that has to be made,” she remarked.
The former South Carolina governor explained that she had a “great working relationship” with the president during her time at the UN.
“I appreciated the way he let me do my job. I thought we did some fantastically great foreign policy things together, and look, I just want to keep building on what we accomplished and not watch it get torn down.”
Haley’s position Monday marks a change of tune from the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Back in February, she told Politico in an interview that she didn’t foresee the former president playing a role in national politics after the riot, saying, “He’s not going to run for federal office again.”
“I don’t think he’s going to be in the picture. I don’t think he can. He’s fallen so far,” she said.
She then alluded to Trump’s alleged responsibility for the riot.
“We need to acknowledge he let us down,”... “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”
The former governor also condemned Trump for repeatedly pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to block the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidential win.
“When I tell you I’m angry, it’s an understatement,” Haley said. “Mike has been nothing but loyal to that man. He’s been nothing but a good friend of that man. … I am so disappointed in the fact that [despite] the loyalty and friendship he had with Mike Pence, that he would do that to him. Like, I’m disgusted by it.”
In the two months since, the former commander-in-chief has begun mounting his comeback, which will likely be on his own social media platform.
Σχόλια