The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Haley to resign from U.N. post at year’s end
President offers praise, says he hopes she’ll return in different role.
President Donald Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said Tuesday she would resign at the end of the year, marking a high-profile departure of one of the few women in the president’s cabinet.
Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, had been an early and frequent critic of Trump; when he named her to the U.N. job weeks after his election in November 2016, the appointment was seen as an olive branch. As ambassador, Haley has been an outspoken and often forceful envoy — someone whom foreign diplomats looked to for guidance from an administration known for haphazard and inconsistent policy positions.
“It was a blessing to go into the U.N. with body armor every day and defend America,” Haley, seated next to Trump in the Oval Office, told reporters.
“I’ll never truly step aside from fighting for our country. But I will tell you that I think it’s time.”
“I think you have to be selfless enough to know when you step aside and allow someone else to do the job,” she added.
White House staffers were caught off guard by the announcement, which Haley and Trump had kept closely under wraps. But the president said Haley had informed him roughly six months ago that she wanted to take a break after finishing two years with the administration. He said he hoped Haley would return in a different role, and that he would name her successor within the next two or three weeks.
“She’s done a fantastic job and we’ve done a fantastic job together,” Trump said. “We’re all happy for you in one way, but we hate to lose you.”
Haley is said to have a strained relationship with Bolton, a longtime critic of the United Nations. But she has been closely allied with Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The couple held a dinner in New York months ago celebrating Haley’s tenure there, and during her Tuesday appearance with Trump, she singled them both out for praise.
“Jared is such a hidden genius that no one understands,” Haley said. “And Ivanka has been just a great friend, and they do a lot of things behind the scenes that I wish more people knew about, because we’re a better country because they’re in this administration.”
Haley, the first Cabinet-level U.N. ambassador for a Republican administration since the end of the Cold War, quickly made clear she saw the position as a steppingstone to a higher political office — a possibility that Trump may have resented.
She became a far more visible face of U.S. foreign policy than her first boss at the State Department, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Mike Pompeo, Tillerson’s replacement, has recently reasserted the secretary of state’s traditional role.
Time magazine celebrated Haley’s ascendance by putting her on a cover as one of the women who are “changing the world.”
But Haley, who has long been seen as a potential presidential candidate, said Tuesday she had no intention of running for president in 2020, as has been speculated. Instead, she said, she plans to campaign for Trump’s re-election.
Stepping away now could be a logical end point if Haley wants to preserve her own political future. But in the short term, people familiar with her thinking said that she is likely to work in the private sector and make some money.
After nearly eight years in government — six years as governor of South Carolina in addition to her time at the United Nations — Nikki Haley’s 2018 financial disclosure report shows Haley has at least $1.5 million in debts, including more than $1 million for her mortgage.
For the moment, few Republican strategists believe that Haley is inclined to challenge Trump in 2020. But those who know her believe that she is likely to run, whether in 2024, or even in 2020 — should the president not run again.
“An open presidential race is a better chance to show off her incredible political skills, rather than some quixotic primary effort,” said Matt Moore, who was the Republican Party chair in South Carolina when Haley was governor there.
The daughter of immigrants from India, Haley favored free markets and global trade and earned international attention when she was governor for speaking out against the Confederate battle flag in the aftermath of the 2015 massacre at a black church in Charleston. During Trump’s presidential campaign, she sharply criticized his demeanor and warned what it might mean for U.S. diplomacy — even suggesting that his tendency to lash out at critics could cause a world war.
As ambassador, Haley acknowledged her policy disagreements with the president in an op-ed in the Washington Post last month when she criticized an anonymous senior administration official who penned an opinion piece in The New York Times, describing a chaotic administration in which many of the president’s aides disagreed with their boss.
“I don’t agree with the president on everything,” Haley wrote. “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.”
Those disagreements began during the 2016 campaign and continued after she joined his administration.
Last December, Haley said that women who had accused Trump of sexual misconduct “should be heard, and they should be dealt with.” It was a surprising break from the administration’s long-standing assertion that the accusations were false, and that voters rightly dismissed them when they elected Trump.
“I think any woman who has felt violated or felt mistreated in any way, they have every right to speak up,” Haley told CBS.