On April 12th, 2021, Nikki Haley, issued a statement saying, “I would not run if President Trump ran.” Today the former governor betrayed her word to President Trump and those of us in the America First movement. There is no greater fraud than your broken word.

-- Greenville County Republican Party.

Nikki Haley grew up in Bamberg, South Carolina, the daughter of Punjabi Sikh immigrants. Her father was a Voorhees College professor.  Her Asian Indian parent immigrants owned a successful foreign clothing and gift store. She began working there as a teenager.  She went to Clemson University where she won a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting in 1994.  She married Michael Haley in 1996, who served in the National Guard. He was deployed to the Afghanistan War.

In 2004 Nikki won a seat to the South Carolina State House of Representatives. She campaigned on a traditional Republican platform that included immigration controls, tax cuts, and abortion boundaries. She was reelected in 2008. Nikki Haley served in South Carolina as a state representative from 2005 to 2011.

In 2011, Nikki Haley was elected as the first woman and first ethnic minority governor of South Carolina as a Republican (2011–17). The Tea Party backed her. She focused primarily on job creation and reducing small business taxes. She supported new voter ID laws and opposed Syrian refugee resettlement in South Carolina.

South Carolina’s economy grew steadily as the jobless rate fell during her first term. Haley easily won reelection in 2014.

In 2015 nine Black congregants were killed in a historic Charleston church. The murderer admitted to having racist motives and was convicted of hate crimes. As South Carolina’s governor, Nikki Haley supported his execution. For this she received bipartisan praise.

Haley was pressured to remove the Confederate Battle Flag from statehouse grounds because of its racist symbolism. Though formerly ambivalent about it, she successfully championed its removal.  

She was selected to give the Republican party’s answer to U.S. President Obama’s State of the Union address. During the 2016 presidential election, Haley endorsed Texas senator Ted Cruz and was critical of eventual Republican winner Trump.

She condemned his call to restrict Muslim immigration. Yet, president-elect Trump chose her to serve as ambassador to the United Nations. Notwithstanding her limited foreign-policy experience, the U.S. Senate confirmed her appointment in a 96 to 4 vote.

She served as ambassador from 2017 to 2018. Nikki Haley supported strong United States Israel relations, repeatedly denounced North Korea, Iran, and the Obama/Iran nuclear deal. She supported withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement.

As ambassador, Haley widened her reputation for outspokenness, principally regarding Iran and North Korea pursuit of nuclear weapons. In 2018 she supported Trump’s decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear pact. Haley also stated that the United States would “never accept a nuclear North Korea” and that North Korea’s regime would be “utterly destroyed” in the event of a war. Haley had told Trump that she planned to speak her own mind. She also occasionally contradicted the president and others in his administration. She “notably was highly critical of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, calling it ‘warfare.’” In December 2018 Haley resigned as ambassador to the UN.

The next year Haley joined the Boeing Board of Directors. She resigned the following year after opposing Boeing’s request for a federal bailout during COVID-19.

Despite saying she would not run against Trump, Nikki Haley announced that she was going to run for president of the United States in 2024, with the slogan it was “time for a new generation.” Haley was the first Republican to run against Trump.

Haley eventually emerged as a leading opponent to Trump, who maintained a wide leads in polls. The Iowa caucuses were held in January 2024, and Trump finished first by a wide margin (51% of the vote), while Haley placed third with 19% of the vote, third to DeSantis’s 21%.

With an enviable record of successes built on guts and determination, why would Nikki then have to resort to lying? Is that smart?

Image: Gage Skidmore