Nikki Haley says she told Trump US ‘needed to go in a new direction’ before 2024 bid
Ryan King
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Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley opened up about her reversal to challenge former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, revealing that the state of the country prompted her decision.
In keeping with her pledge, Haley had a phone call with Trump prior to announcing her campaign and informed him that she would be challenging him. Haley argued that at the time she committed to not challenge him, the outlook for the country was much less dire.
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“I’m going to keep that phone call personal. I didn’t ask, I told,” Haley said during an interview with NBC’s Today Show. “I told him that I thought that we needed to go in a new direction.”
As Trump has pointed out repeatedly, back in 2021, Haley declared publicly that she would not run in 2024 if Trump threw his hat into the ring. At the time, Haley had positioned herself as a key ally of him. Trump has claimed credit for some of her success by selecting her to serve as his U.N. ambassador.
“I would not run if President Trump ran. And I would talk to him about it. That is something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point if that decision is something that has to be made,” Haley told a reporter in a clip shared by Trump.
When pressed about her turnaround, Haley underscored the changing times and the mounting list of troubles afflicting the country in the time since Trump’s departure from the White House.
“When I first said I wouldn’t run against him, Afghanistan hadn’t fallen,” she told the news outlet. “We didn’t see the rise in inflation, we didn’t see what was happening in our schools where it was, and we didn’t see the results of the midterms that we just had.”
Haley also echoed her calls for a fresh generation of leaders to address the country’s mounting list of troubles.
“It is time for a new generation of leaders,” she added. “You shouldn’t have to be 80 years old to get to Washington. We’ve got to start righting the ship. We need new blood, we need new leadership because we have some serious challenges.”
Since her campaign’s inception, which was debuted via video Tuesday and then during a speech in Charleston, South Carolina Wednesday, Haley has sparsely uttered Trump’s name, keen on keeping the focus on the Biden administration.
“What I am saying is I don’t kick sideways, I’m kicking forward. Joe Biden is the president, he’s the one I’m running against,” Haley told Fox News Wednesday. “I’m kicking forward, it’s all about Joe Biden and it’s all about the people in America winning again.”
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Meanwhile, Trump has begun stepping up his offensive against her.
“The greatest thing Nikki Haley did for our Country, and the Great State of South Carolina, was accepting the position of United Nations Ambassador so that the incredible then Lieutenant Governor, Henry McMaster, could be Governor of South Carolina,” Trump chided on Truth Social. “That was a big reason why I appointed Nikki.”
Haley is set to hit the campaign trail in Iowa and New Hampshire for a series of town hall-style events. She is currently in fourth place in the latest RealClearPolitics polling aggregate.