Well, there goes Nikki Haley.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump accepted Haley’s resignation as UN ambassador. She will exit the role by the end of the year.
Here is Trump delivering the news in the Oval Office beside a grinning Nikki who one imagines is pretty stoked about escaping the madness:
According to Axios, who first reported the story, her decision was a surprise to Trump’s foreign policy team. Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs says that according to her sources, John Kelly and Mike Pence were both taken aback.
“Nikki has been a clear, consistent, and powerful voice for America’s interests and democratic principles on the world stage”, Paul Ryan said, adding that he’s “saddened that she is leaving the administration.”
Haley reportedly discussed “taking a break” earlier this year, and you can hardly blame her. She’s been on the front lines of Trump’s at times schizophrenic approach to foreign policy.
In 2015, during an appearance at the National Press Club, Haley said this about then-candidate Trump:
Every time someone criticizes him, he goes and makes a political attack back. That’s not who we are as Republicans. That’s not what we do. [Americans] want to know they’re sending someone up to the White House that’s going to be calm and cool-tempered and not get mad at someone just because they criticize him. We would really have a world war if that happens.
Right. And who knows how many times over the past 12 months Haley has herself helped avoid “a world war” in her capacity as Trump’s envoy to the world.
Haley was also a sharp critic of Trump’s immigration policies in the lead up to the election.
On September 7, following the bombshell anonymous Op-Ed in the New York Times penned by a White House official who claimed that the administration is a case study in chaos and needs adult supervision on a daily basis, Haley penned her own Op-Ed for the Washington Post. Here are a couple of excerpts:
We have enough issues to deal with in the world, so it’s unfortunate to have to take time to write this, but I feel compelled to address the claims in the anonymous “resistance” op-ed published this week in the New York Times. The author might think he or she is doing a service to the country. I strongly disagree. What this “senior official in the Trump administration” has done, and is apparently intent on continuing to do, is a serious disservice – not just to the president but to the country.
I, too, am a senior Trump administration official. I proudly serve in this administration, and I enthusiastically support most of its decisions and the direction it is taking the country. But I don’t agree with the president on everything. When there is disagreement, there is a right way and a wrong way to address it. I pick up the phone and call him or meet with him in person.
Yes, Haley “picks up the phone and calls him” or “meets with him in person”. And apparently one of those recent “calls” or “meetings” involved Haley telling Trump that she is done being his ambo.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Haley said she doesn’t have her next job lined up quite yet, but insisted she’s not planning to run for President. She also claimed she’ll campaign for Trump in 2020.
“[She’s] done a fantastic job and we’ve done a fantastic job together”, Trump remarked.
Because you know, it’s all about him.
Amusingly, Haley praised the Trump family while announcing her departure, calling Jared Kushner a “hidden genius that no one understands.”
Nothing further.
The sparkle in her eyes an obvious middle finger to Trump, she was radiant, like a bride and a new mother combined.
Speculation has it that Jared will take the helm at the UN. That will free Kanye to resolve the Middle East.