WADE VANDERVORT/AFP through Getty Nikki Haley
Nikki Haley has formally declared her candidacy for president, saying her 2024 run on social media Tuesday morning with a promise to prioritize fiscal duty, border safety and overseas relations.
Haley, the previous governor of South Carolina, has been teasing a potential run for months, telling reporters at a 2022 fundraiser in Iowa she would run “if there’s a spot for me.”
“What I’ve at all times mentioned is, I really like this nation,” she mentioned, the Des Moines Register reported final 12 months. “I had the pleasure of serving the state that raised me and defending the nation I really like a lot. And if it appears like there’s a spot for me subsequent 12 months, I’ve by no means misplaced a race. I am not going to start out now. I will put 1,000 p.c in and I will end it.”
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Haley’s announcement pits her immediately towards former President Donald Trump, who introduced his personal 2024 run again in November.
Haley served because the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations underneath Trump from January 2017 until her resignation in December 2018.
Since leaving his administration, Haley has each embraced and pushed back towards Trump, at one level calling his rhetoric “so pointless” and at one other saying he “tells the world what it wants to listen to.”
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP through Getty
In an interview with At this time in 2018, Haley mentioned she would usually use Trump’s unpredictability to her benefit whereas serving a ambassador, saying: “I used to be attempting to get the job finished, and I acquired the job finished by being truthful, but additionally by letting him be unpredictable and never displaying our playing cards.”
She has additionally beforehand mentioned she wouldn’t run for president in 2024 if Trump sought another term, saying in a 2021 press convention: “I might not run if President Trump ran, and I might discuss to him about it. That is one thing that we’ll have a dialog about sooner or later if that call is one thing that needs to be made.”
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Haley’s announcement video begins with a narrative of her mother and father’ immigration and their longstanding perception in unity, earlier than launching right into a message towards the “socialist Left” and people who accuse Republicans of racism. By way of clips and pictures she demonizes Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and The 1619 Project, which highlights the results of slavery and historic contributions of Black People.
“Some take a look at our previous as proof that America’s founding rules are dangerous. They are saying the promise of freedom is simply made up. Some assume our concepts will not be simply flawed, however racist and evil,” Haley says. “Nothing might be farther from the reality.”
She then touts her time as U.N. ambassador, arguing that far worse evil occurs abroad. “In China, they commit genocide; in Iran, they homicide their very own individuals for difficult the federal government; and when a lady tells you about watching troopers throw her child into a fireplace, it places issues into perspective,” she says within the video. “Even on our worst day, we’re blessed to dwell in America.”
Haley additionally makes a case for reviving the Republican Occasion: That lawmakers should return to their previous methods of turning “away from worry, towards God.”
Referencing China, Russia and the Democratic Occasion, she concludes three-and-a-half minute video with, “All of them assume we might be bullied, kicked round. It is best to know this about me: I do not put up with bullies, and while you chill, it hurts them extra for those who’re carrying heels.”
Nathan Posner/Anadolu Company through Getty Nikki Haley speaks at a rally for Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker in Nov. 2022
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Haley, who was born to 2 Indian-American immigrants, graduated from Clemson College with a level in accounting and briefly labored in funds earlier than coming into authorities.
She was elected to the South Carolina Home of Representatives in 2004 and served because the state’s governor from 2011 to 2017, when she was appointed to her function within the Trump administration.
After leaving her publish as U.N. ambassador, Haley went on to serve on the board of administrators for airline large Boeing earlier than she resigned from the profitable place in 2020 due to her disagreements over airline bailouts amid the pandemic, according to NPR.