In an obviously calculated move to service her well-known intentions to launch a presidential run in 2024, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley has distanced herself from Donald Trump despite being one of his most vocal supporters during his four years in office. Haley’s public breaking from Trump arrives in an exhaustive profile on her political career and ambitions. It also examines her attempt to redefine the Republican Party just a month after a MAGA rally ended in an insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol building. Via Politico:
“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.”
Haley claims that she hasn’t spoken with Trump since the attack on the Capitol. “When I tell you I’m angry, it’s an understatement,” she told Politico. “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.” However, these remarks fly in the face of Haley’s defense of Trump just a few weeks ago when she told Fox News in late January that she doesn’t think there’s a basis for impeachment and that people need to leave him alone. “They beat him up before he got into office. They are beating him up after he leaves office. I mean, at some point, I mean, give the man a break. I mean, move on.”
It’s that brand of clear-cut hypocrisy that’s getting Haley roasted for her sudden 180 on Trump:
Nikki Haley made her choice – and her choice was to be a vocal cheerleader for Donald Trump throughout his presidency even though she knew better. That choice should, above all, define any future political aspirations. https://t.co/wu4XIdofVr
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) February 12, 2021
Nikki Haley is more dangerous than a Ted Cruz or MTG as a 2024 presidential candidate, in my opinion. She was 100% Trump Train but is far smarter and more politically adept. This calculated, simultaneous support of and distancing from Trump will be line she walks. https://t.co/MJ7BK47S5P
— Beau Willimon (@BeauWillimon) February 12, 2021
https://twitter.com/matthewjdowd/status/1360223487978328064
https://twitter.com/AaronBlake/status/1360223343975292929
And the hits kept coming for Haley as her very active role in pushing Trump on the Republican Party resurfaced along with her own warning in 2016 that Trump’s rhetoric could lead to violence, which she conveniently abandoned when he won the election:
A “profile in courage”
OR
The profile of someone looking to be the 2024 Republican Presidential Candidate https://t.co/x7Uev8JSuz— Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) February 12, 2021
Nikki Haley challenging the Republican base's capacity to remember yesterday. https://t.co/4qWvnsyrLx
— Jeffrey Wright 🥜 (@jfreewright) February 12, 2021
The first person who praises Nikki Haley for this 11th hour break from Donald Trump deserves all the eye rolls. And then the mute button. #Bye
— @tiffanydcross (@TiffanyDCross) February 12, 2021
JUST IN: Nikki Haley breaks with screwdriver: “We should not have jabbed it into our foreheads.” https://t.co/tYY1t3Ny92
— Dennis DiClaudio (@dennisdiclaudio) February 12, 2021
As for her opponents in the Democratic Party, they’re not about to let Haley pretend she wasn’t defending Trump less than a month ago and that she had no qualms giving him a pass for the Capitol attack, which she now claims “disgusted” her.
Rep. James @WhipClyburn (D-SC) on Nikki Haley trying to distance herself from Trump:
"This is an incident of Nikki Haley breaking with Nikki Haley. Just 2 or 3 weeks ago she was admonishing us to 'leave the man alone,' now she's saying we shouldn't have followed him …" pic.twitter.com/29aP17DuUo
— The Recount (@therecount) February 12, 2021
(Via Politico)