COLOMBIA, SC (AP) – Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, often mentioned as a possible candidate for the Republican Party presidency in 2024, is among the last of his party to denounce President Donald Trump’s comments that prompted supporters to organize a violent attack on the Capitol.
“He was very wrong with his words,” said Haley on Thursday during a speech at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee, according to excerpts from The Associated Press. “Your actions since election day will be judged harshly by history.”
She called it “deeply disappointing” because of the effect it will have on the Trump administration’s legacy.
“It is a pity, because I believe that our country has made really extraordinary gains in the past four years,” said Haley, citing the withdrawal of the nuclear pact with Iran and the confirmation of three Supreme Court judges.
His comments are further evidence of the balancing act that Haley has maintained since he resigned as governor of South Carolina in 2016 to join the Trump Office. In two years at the United Nations, Haley has trod a path to speak out against Trump, although he has not directly drawn his ire. She left the office on her own terms in 2018, a rarity during a wave of staff turmoil.
Now, after returning to South Carolina, Haley has sometimes sought to distance himself from Trump. She often talks about a variety of topics and campaigns for other Republicans, as she did recently in the US Senate election in Georgia.
Republicans were already struggling with the future of the party after Trump’s tumultuous term. But after this week, Haley echoed the remarks of some, including Senator Lindsey Graham, a fellow South Carolina, who on Thursday called Trump’s fight a “self-inflicted wound”.
“If we are the party of personal responsibility, we need to take personal responsibility,” said Haley. “We must stop pitting the American people against each other – and this Republican Party must lead the way.”
While Haley’s rebuke is welcome, it should have come sooner, said a South Carolina lawmaker who characterized his shift in position as the same “political opportunism” displayed in the 2015 Confederate flag debate. Haley did not publicly support efforts to remove the flag from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds until a wave of bipartisan calls to do so after the massacre of black parishioners in a historic Charleston church by a man who embraced the symbol.
Some, like South Carolina state senator Marlon Kimpson, see a similar change in light of the Capitol riots.
“Nikki Haley’s revisionist story is simply not going to please people who have been paying attention for the past four years,” Kimpson told the AP. “Nikki Haley trained, helped, incited and was an accomplice to Donald Trump for much of his time in office, and the story will not be kind to the people in his administration.”
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