Nikki Haley

Nikki Haley planning Feb. 15 launch for 2024 White House bid
ASSOCIATED PRESS, MEG KINNARD
Tue, January 31, 2023 at 8:30 PM MST

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Nikki Haley is moving closer to making her presidential campaign official.

On Wednesday, supporters of the former South Carolina governor will get an email invitation to a Feb. 15 launch event in Charleston, at which she plans to announce her campaign, according to a person familiar with the plans but not authorized to speak publicly about them.

News of Haley's plans was first reported by The Post and Courier of Charleston.

Haley, 51, served as South Carolina's governor for six years before serving as President Donald Trump's ambassador to the United Nations. When she enters the race, Haley will be the first contender to join the contest against her former boss, who is currently the sole Republican seeking his party's 2024 nomination.

Trump was in South Carolina Saturday for the initial campaign swing of his 2024 campaign, standing alongside Gov. Henry McMaster — who served as Haley's lieutenant governor — and several GOP members of the state's delegation, part of his leadership team in the early-voting state.

During the Trump administration, Haley feuded at times with other White House officials while bolstering her own public persona. Her 2018 departure fueled speculation that she would challenge Trump in 2020, or replace Vice President Mike Pence on the ticket, but Haley did neither.

Instead, Haley returned to South Carolina, where she bought a home on Kiawah Island, joined the board of aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. and launched herself on the speaking circuit, reportedly commanding fees as high as $200,000. She penned two books, a step commonly taken by many on the road toward the White House.

After the Jan. 6 Capitol siege, Haley initially cast doubts on Trump’s political future but said she wouldn’t challenge him in 2024.

In 2021, Haley told The Associated Press that she “would not run if President Trump ran,” but she has since shifted course, ramping up activity through her Stand for America nonprofit and political action committee, and endorsing dozens of candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.

Late last year, during a visit to her alma mater, Haley told an audience at Clemson University that she would be “taking the holidays” to consider a run.

Asked recently why she is now considering a run in spite of her 2021 comments, Haley told Fox News “a lot has changed,” referencing, among other things, U.S. economic troubles.

She went on to say she felt she could be part of “new generational change,” an indirect reference to Trump’s advanced age.

In South Carolina on Saturday, Trump told WIS-TV that Haley had called him several days earlier to seek his opinion. Trump pointed out her earlier pledge not to run against him but said he made no attempts to stop her.

“She said she would never run against me because I was the greatest president, but people change their opinions, and they change what's in their hearts,” Trump said. “So I said, if your heart wants to do it, you have to go do it.”

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Nikki Haley announces 2024 White House bid
Kate Sullivan, Terence Burlij and Kaitlan Collins, CNN
Updated 11:27 AM EST, Tue February 14, 2023

(CNN) - Former South Carolina Republican Gov. Nikki Haley announced Tuesday in a video that she will run for president in 2024, becoming the first major rival to challenge former President Donald Trump for the GOP nomination.

“The Washington establishment has failed us over and over and over again. It’s time for a new generation of leadership to rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose,” Haley, who is expected to deliver remarks Wednesday in Charleston at a campaign launch event, said in the video.

Haley served as US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump. The former president, who announced his bid last year, recently appeared to bless her entrance into the race, telling reporters that she had called to tell him she was considering a campaign launch and that he had said, “You should do it.”

Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, opened the video talking about how she felt “different” growing up in Bamberg, South Carolina.

“The railroad tracks divided the town by race. I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not Black, not White. I was different. But my mom would always say your job is not to focus on the differences but the similarities. And my parents reminded me and my siblings every day how blessed we were to live in America,” Haley said.

If successful in the primary, Haley would be the first woman and the first Asian American nominated by the Republican Party for president.

A former president of the National Association of Women Business Owners, she was first elected to the South Carolina House in 2004. Six years later, she became the first woman elected as governor of the state in 2010 and was the youngest governor in the nation when she took office in 2011. She resigned in the middle of her second term to become Trump’s ambassador to the UN – a role she served in until the end of 2018.

During her video announcement, Haley touted her record as a twice-elected governor of South Carolina and her leadership in the state after nine people were fatally shot at a historically Black church in Charleston in 2015. After the shooting, Haley called for the removal of the Confederate flag from the grounds of the Statehouse.

She also leaned into her foreign policy experience in her announcement and referenced her time as UN ambassador, saying she has “seen evil.”

“Some look at our past as evidence that America’s founding principles are bad. They say the promise of freedom is just made up. Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Haley said. “I have seen evil. In China they commit genocide. In Iran they murder their own people for challenging the government. And when a woman tells you about watching soldiers throw her baby into a fire it puts things into perspective. Even on our worst day, we are blessed to live in America.”

“Some people look at America and see vulnerability,” Haley said. “The socialist left sees an opportunity to rewrite history. China and Russia are on the march. They all think we can be bullied, kicked around. You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies and when you kick back it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”

Haley will likely face stiff competition in this lane from other potential GOP candidates such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who are all said to be weighing 2024 runs and could also appeal to conservative Republicans looking to turn the page from Trump. Some Republican strategists say a big Republican primary field would be advantageous to Trump, who still enjoys significant support among the party base, and could splinter the vote, allowing the former president to walk away with the nomination.

Haley has often attempted to walk a fine line between allying with Trump and distancing herself enough to appeal to his more moderate critics. She left the Trump administration in 2018 on good terms with the then-president – a marked contrast from other former Trump officials who have publicly fallen out with their onetime boss.

Trump on Tuesday weighed in on Haley’s announcement, saying in a statement to CNN, “Even though Nikki Haley said, ‘I would never run against my President, he was a great President, the best President in my lifetime,’ I told her she should follow her heart and do what she wants to do. I wish her luck!”

Trump was inaccurately referencing a statement Haley made in April 2021 when she said she “would not run if President Trump ran,” a sentiment she later walked back as she called for a new generation of leadership.

Whoopi Goldberg loses it over Nikki Haley's presidential campaign announcement: 'You lost your mind'


"The View" co-host Whoopi Goldberg was not happy Tuesday about former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley's announcement launching her campaign for president.

Goldberg lost it after playing a string of video clips from Haley's new campaign ad during a segment of the show, railing against the Republican for not admitting America was "not perfect," and accusing her of no longer knowing "right from wrong."

"So Nikki, you know, since you have been asleep all this time, and you just woke up, you're just finding out that there are things about our country that are not perfect," Goldberg said, appearing upset. "And for us to pretend that it is and that nothing happened is ridiculous. So you're not saying anything new."

"And you of all people should know better because you used to actually have some sanity and knew right from wrong. And then you lost your mind and went in some new direction. So don't do that," she added.

In the ad, Haley says her parents reminded her every day how blessed they were to live in America, and that America's founding principles weren't "bad," or the promise of freedom "made up." She also blasted those who she said referred to American ideals as "racist and evil."

"Nothing could be further from the truth," she said.

Haley took to social media to respond to Goldberg's rant, joking about the effect her candidacy had on liberals.

"Here we go again with Whoopi. The thought of me running for President makes the liberals’ heads explode. I wonder why?" she wrote on Twitter.

Haley joins former President Donald Trump as the second Republican to launch a 2024 presidential campaign. Other rumored potential candidates include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Arkansas gov. Asa Hutchinson, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan.

If she pisses off liberals then she's got my vote