Haley, blasting Biden’s foreign policy, says she supports Trump’s presidential run
The former GOP presidential candidate said that Trump is ‘not perfect’ on national security but Biden has been ‘a catastrophe’
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Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a leading rival to former President Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primary, announced on Wednesday that she plans to vote for Trump in the November election following a speech in which she blasted the Biden administration’s handling of foreign policy.
Haley and Trump sparred on a range of issues, particularly foreign policy, during the presidential primary, and Haley routinely continues to win over a notable faction of anti-Trump GOP voters in Republican primaries across the country, months after she dropped out of the race.
“Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me, and not assume that they’re just going to be with him. And I genuinely hope he does that,” Haley said in an appearance at the Hudson Institute.
She called Trump “not perfect” on national security but said Biden has been “a catastrophe.”
Haley focused much of her speech on the Biden administration’s treatment of Israel, condemning Biden for halting some arms transfers to the Jewish state.
“Those weapons are important for defeating Hamas,” Haley said. “Withholding them validates the totally false and destructive narrative that Israel is acting unjustly by defending herself.”
She said that the suspension of arms sales will embolden attacks on Israel and on other U.S. allies in the Middle East; make allies “question whether they can ever trust what America says”; push Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan toward Russia and China; and embolden Russia to continue its invasion of Ukraine and China to attack Taiwan and U.S. allies.
“Biden has given Iran nothing but cash and time. Cash and time it used to strengthen its terrorist proxies,” Haley continued. “Cash and time it used to get to the brink of a nuclear bomb.”
She alleged that Democrats are turning on Israel and that Biden is moving ever closer to the anti-Israel wing of his party, which opposed additional funding to Israel last month.
Haley’s anti-Biden speech will likely hurt efforts from the president’s re-election campaign to woo Haley-supporting Republican voters. The campaign launched a $1 million digital ad blitz in March aimed at her supporters, featuring clips of Trump attacking Haley during campaign rallies.
“Nothing has changed for the millions of Republican voters who continue to cast their ballots against Donald Trump in the primaries and care deeply about the future of our democracy, standing strong with our allies against foreign adversaries, and working across the aisle to get things done for the American people – while also rejecting the chaos, division and violence that Donald Trump embodies,” Biden communications director Michael Tyler said in a statement.
In the speech, Haley also had harsh words for “many Republicans in Congress,” who she said “tried to push Ukraine off a cliff.”
“Thankfully, Speaker Johnson showed moral courage and overcame both Republicans and Democrats to support Ukraine and Israel,” she continued. “Some Republicans lack the same clarity when it comes to Ukraine. Russia’s dictator has made it perfectly clear that he won’t stop at Kyiv… Our goal should always be the prevention of war through strength and moral clarity.”
She emphasized that taking a more isolationist posture would only give U.S. adversaries the opportunity to shape the direction of the U.S. and the world. She warned “the times we live in look like the 1930s,” and that the world could end up in a similar position without strong leadership.