Trump: As UN Ambassador, Haley Did “Favor” to South Carolina

by Sharon Rondeau

(Feb. 16, 2023) — On Wednesday evening, 45th President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump posted on his TruthSocial account that a “big reason” he chose former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as his United Nations ambassador was so that her then-lieutenant governor, Henry McMaster, could assume her position.

“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, where he has done an absolutely fantastic job,” Trump wrote. “That was a big reason why I appointed Nikki to the position—It was a favor to the people I love in South Carolina!”

A former member of the U.S. Army Reserves who embarked on a 40-year career as an attorney, including serving as a U.S. attorney nominated by President Ronald Reagan and South Carolina’s attorney general, McMaster is a supporter of Trump’s 2024 campaign.

Although stating her support for Trump’s 2020 re-election bid and pledging not to seek the presidency if Trump were to run again, Haley launched a campaign Wednesday in Charleston while on her website touting Trump’s praise of her as she departed the ambassadorship in late 2018.

Earlier Wednesday Trump reacted to Haley’s announcement by pointing to a poll indicating she currently holds 1% support among Republican voters. “I told Nikki to follow her heart, not her ambition or belief,” he wrote on TruthSocial. “Who knows, stranger things have happened. She’s polling at 1%, not a bad start!”

Prior to accepting the nomination for United Nations ambassador during her second term as governor and successfully weathering the confirmation process, Haley was not a Trump supporter.

While a first-time gubernatorial candidate, Haley was endorsed by the Club for Growth, which Trump to this day dislikes.

According to NBC News on Tuesday:

Former South Carolina GOP Gov. Nikki Haley’s entrance into the presidential race this week is shedding new light on her past criticism and contradicting statements about former President Donald Trump. 

Haley is the first Republican to officially take on Trump for the GOP nomination, and, like many Republicans, she has evolved from a harsh Trump critic to an ardent supporter. Despite criticizing the former president after the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, she continued to stress that he helped the GOP win over new supporters. 

Haley was a sharp critic of Trump during his first campaign in 2016, backing two other GOP contenders before saying she would vote for Trump after he became the party’s nominee. After she joined his administration, she went on to become a Trump supporter, encouraging voters to support his re-election in 2020.

On February 16, 2016, NBC and other sources reported, Haley said that Trump constituted “everything a governor doesn’t want in a president.” Less than two weeks later, while campaigning for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Haley opined that Trump “chooses not to disavow the K.K.K. That is not a part of our party. That is not who we are.”

In a Newsweek opinion article published Thursday, writer Ewan Palmer reported that assuming Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis enters the presidential contest, “DeSantis and Trump are likely to be the final two candidates left in the GOP primary. Michael Binder, professor of political science at the University of North Florida, told Newsweek that any other candidate such as Haley hoping to paint themselves as anti-Trump may ultimately benefit the former president.”

South Carolina is known as the “first in the South” presidential primary state.