(CNSNews.com) - UN Ambassador Nikki Haley on Monday accused President Biden of running away from the crisis in East Palestine, Ohio, where residents are dealing with the aftermath of hazardous materials being released into the environment after a train derailment.
“It's very telling that here you have one of the worst crises that we have is on our border, and Joe Biden won't come. Now you have these poor Americans in Ohio, the first thing - I did this as governor. We had hurricanes. We had floods. We had a church shooting. We had a school shooting,” she told Fox News’ “Hannity on Monday.
“The first thing you do is go be with your people, the very first thing, and You take your agencies with you. Joe Biden should have shown up. Kamala Harris should have shown up, and all of their agency heads should have shown up. We had a train derailment in South Carolina. Let me tell you something,” Haley said.
“Those chemicals go into the ground. They go into the water. They're in the air. You have to tell all of the people in the affected area what you know, what you believe is going to happen and how you can earn their trust in being back there. This is about parents raising their kids there. This is about people being comfortable breathing the air,” the former ambassador said.
“It's unacceptable that a president would not go for something like this when it's that serious. This is a crisis, and he always runs from a crisis,” she said.
On the liberal reaction to her running for president, Haley said, “I've dealt with this all my life. They can't stand a conservative minority female not being a Democrat. And so they will continue to throw everything. When I first won the governorship in South Carolina, it was liberal minority Democrats that said she's not a minority.
“She's just a conservative with a tan. This is going to continue to happen. It infuriates them because they know we win independents. They know we win suburban women. They know that we win minorities, because our solutions lift up everyone, not just a select few. More importantly, look at how hypocritical this is,” she said.
“If a Republican said this about Kamala Harris or said this about any Democrat, they would be asking for people to be fired. You're not hearing any of that. I mean, first day it was Whoopi Goldberg. The second day it's Don Lemon. Today ‘The View’ picks it up back again and trying to glorify Dianne Feinstein and Maxine Waters when I say we should have mental competency tests for people over the age of 75. We struck a nerve but I'll wear it as a badge of honor,” Haley said.
When asked to respond to criticism of her proposal that politicians over 70 undergo mental competency tests, she said, “It's all they had. They were just looking for something. I'm 30 years younger than Joe Biden. They seriously looked at -- if you look at polls, Democrats don't even want him. You can't say I'm old when you have a president that’s 31, 32 years older than me.
“That's ridiculous. At the end of the day, we're going to talk about things that matter. I'm at royal flooring in Urbandale, Iowa, and what they care about is they want accountability D.C. They do want a Washington outsider. They want term limits. They want mental competency tests for elected officials,” Haley said.
“They want government to remember that they work for the people, not the other way around, and so the libs can get upset all they want. I saw Bernie Sanders lost his mind over it, but you know when they get defensive, who do they think they are that the people in America don't deserve to see what the mental competency of these elected officials are?” she said.
“Why are they so upset that we're asking for term limits? Why are they so upset that we want them to balance the budget? I think it just goes to show Washington needs to be cleaned up a lot more than we thought,” Haley added.
When asked what’s more important to her - ideas or age, Haley said, “Look, I think it's about transparency. Like Americans need to know that their elected officials are capable of making the really tough decisions. These are decisions on national security. These are decisions on what happens with our debt.
“These are decisions on their children’s education. Americans deserve to know these things, and we need transparency, and so this is not saying that you can't do your job. This is saying that you need to be transparent enough that you tell the American people whether you're at the top of your game. I don't see anything wrong with that. This isn’t about one person,” she said.
“This is not about presidential candidates. I want this for Congress. I want this for all members of Congress to be able to do that. Look at D.C. Right now. Look at how old it is. Are you comfortable that they can deal with a Chinese spy balloon? Are you comfortable that they can deal if North Korea anti-ballistic missiles? Are you comfortable if Iran is trying to get the bomb?” Haley said.
“No, we need to know that we have people in Washington who are capable of making these decisions and more importantly that they remember who it is that they work for. They have lost that. Everybody that is getting defensive about this says more about them than it does about the fact that we're trying to change this,” she said.