Nikki Haley says she would support Trump again and would defer to him on White House run

Former U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley says she would support former President Donald Trump if he decides to seek reelection in 2024 – just weeks after saying he let down the country with his words and actions before the Capitol riot.

Haley, herself a potential 2024 presidential candidate, made the comments in her home state of South Carolina, in yet another demonstration the former president’s grip on the party he leads. 

Trump on Monday received the ‘Champion of Freedom’ Award from the head of the GOP Senate campaign arm. Sen. Rick Scott, head of the National Republican​ Senatorial Committee, presented the award, in the shape of a silver bowl, to Trump at Mar-a-Lago – just weeks after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump ‘provoked’ the January 6 Capitol riot.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley speaks with reporters after a campus tour of South Carolina State University on Monday, April 12, 2021, in Orangeburg, S.C. She said she would defer to Trump if he decides to seek reelection in 2024

The award came days after Republican National Committee donors gathered at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump veered off script in remarks where he reportedly called McConnell a ‘dumb son of a b****.’

He also called McConnell a ‘stone cold loser.’ 

Asked if she would support Trump in 2024 if he runs, Haley responded: ‘Yes.’

She told the Associated Press: ‘I would not run if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about it. That’s something that we will have a conversation about, at some point if that decision is something that has to be made,’ she said.

She touted her ‘great working relationship’ with Trump and said she ‘appreciated the way he let me do my job. I thought we did some fantastically great foreign policy things together.’

‘I just want to keep building on what we accomplished,’ she said. 

She also said the last time she spoke to Trump was after the election – but before the Jan. 6th riot, which Democrats in their second batch of impeachment articles against Trump accused him of inciting.

She defended Trump for his weekend attacks on fellow Republicans.

‘I think former President Trump´s always been opinionated,’ she said. ‘Just because he left being president, that´s not going to stop. But I think what he also talked about were all the successes that he had in the administration. And I think that´s what Republicans are uniting on,’ she said, the Associated Press reported. ‘Every day Biden and Kamala Harris are in office unites the Republicans.’ 

Her comments about her willingness to support Trump came despite her own statements rebuking him after the Capitol riot. She made those remarks to Politico before the unsuccessful effort by Democrats to impeach him. 

Her comments praising Trump came after she said in a recent interview that he ‘let us down’

‘I just want to keep building on what we accomplished,’ Haley said of Trump

Haley signed legislation removing the Confederate battle flag from the state capitol in South Carolina. She denounced the Jan. 6th Capitol riot and criticized the way Trump treated Mike Pence

Trump on Monday received the ‘Champion of Freedom’ Award from Sen. Rick Scott, head of the National Republican​ Senatorial Committee. It came hours after he attacked Sen. Mitch McConnell as a ‘stone cold loser’

‘We need to acknowledge he let us down,’ Haley told the publication. ‘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.’ 

She also made some predictions about Trump that did not hold up. ‘I think he’s going to find himself further and further isolated,’ she said. 

She said she was ‘disgusted’ by the way Trump treated his vice president Mike Pence. Trump had blasted Trump Jan. 6th for failing to show ‘courage,’ and had publicly called on him to send certified votes for Joe Biden back to the states. He repeated that claim at his weekend speech at Mar-a-Lago. 

‘When I tell you I’m angry, it’s an understatement,’ Haley said earlier. ‘Mike has been nothing but loyal to that man. He’s been nothing but a good friend of that man. … 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.’