Nikki Haley told the Republican National Convention that “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period,” mending fences with the former president after a bitter primary race in which she had called him “not qualified” for office.
“We have a country to save, and a unified Republican Party is essential for saving her,” Haley said, with Trump sitting in the VIP area of the Fiserv Forum and clapping as she spoke.
She added, “For those who have some doubts about President Trump, I want to tell you a few things about the commander in chief I know and worked with. As ambassador to the United Nations, I had a front-row seat to his national security policies. We sure could use those again.”
Haley served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, but she spoke out against him following the attack on the Capitol on January 6th. Then, she decided to run for president and then became his chief rival for the GOP nomination. During the campaign, she blasted Trump for not stopping the siege of the Capitol on January 6th, mocked his cognitive abilities for mistaking her for Nancy Pelosi in a speech and declared that he couldn’t “win a general election.”
Trump and his team, meanwhile, referred to her as “bird brain,” and the former president mocked the absence of her husband, Michael, from the campaign trail. He was on military deployment. After those comments, Haley said that Trump was “not qualified” to be president because “that kind of disrespect for the military.”
Haley dropped out of the race in March, but in May said that she would be voting for Trump. She originally was not on the list of speakers for the convention, even though another rival for the nomination, Ron DeSantis, was. But after the assassination attempt on Trump’s life on Saturday came reports that she would be added to the lineup.
In her speech, Haley, in her call for unity, said that she was “proud to serve America in President Trump’s cabinet. And I’ll tell you something you won’t hear from the critics. He appreciated advice and input. Americans were well served by this president, even if they didn’t agree with him on all things.”
