Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley delivered harsh criticisms of President Donald Trump in a speech to the Republican National Committee on Thursday, telling the audience that her former boss’s actions since the election “will be judged harshly by history.”
What are the details?
“President Trump has not always chosen the right words,” Haley said in her address at the RNC’s winter meeting, according to Politico. “He was wrong with his words in Charlottesville, and I told him so at the time. He was badly wrong with his words yesterday. And it wasn’t just his words. His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Haley also praised Trump for his foreign policy approach, saying, “President Trump was our first commander in chief to see China for what it really is—the greatest global threat facing America. He held China accountable for its unfair trade, its theft of our secrets, and its egregious human rights record. The United States now sees China with open eyes, and we have Donald Trump to thank for that.”
On the morning of her talk, Haley tweeted that “it would be a conversation about where we are, some hard truths, and where I believe we go from here.”
Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, has been floated as a possible 2024 Republican presidential contender, and has campaigned aggressively for GOP Senate candidates. Most recently, she stumped in Georgia for Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who both lost to their respective Democratic challengers earlier this week—flipping the Senate blue.
Haley called the outcome “a major wake up call for the Republican Party and our country.”
Over the past 24 hours, President Trump has faced calls from within his own party to resign, after hosting a huge rally in Washington, D.C., that ended with the U.S. Capitol building falling under siege by his supporters in protest of the presidential election results.
As Congress prepared to certify the Electoral College votes in favor of President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday, a mob of hundreds of Trump supporters stormed the building. The rioters overwhelmed Capitol police and even breached the Senate chamber. One woman was fatally shot by an officer when she attempted to climb through a window into the House chamber. Three other protesters died reportedly from medical emergencies.
During the chaos, the president delivered a video message telling the protesters to go home in “peace,” while continuing to insist the the election was stolen.
Since the events on Wednesday, several Trump administration officials including two cabinet members have resigned.