Despite finishing a distant second in the Republican presidential primaries, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley told the crowd at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday night: “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period.”
“I had a front row seat to his national security policies. We sure could use those again,” said Haley, also a former U.S ambassador to the U.N. “When Barack Obama was president, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea. With Joe Biden as president, Putin invaded all of Ukraine. When Donald Trump was president, Putin invaded nothing. No invasions, no wars. That was no accident. Putin didn’t attack Ukraine because he knew Donald Trump was tough. A strong president doesn’t start wars. A strong president prevents wars.”
Trump’s former U.N. ambassador also said that the Biden administration has been weak in the Middle East, in seeking to reenter the Iranian nuclear agreement and pressuring Israel in its war with Hamas.
Haley challenged Trump for the 2024 presidential nomination and was the only other GOP candidate to win a primary—in both the District of Columbia and the state of Vermont. She lost her home state of South Carolina to Trump.
During her convention remarks, Haley returned to a long-standing campaign theme, which she said was backed up by Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June.
“For more than a year, I said a vote for Joe Biden is a vote for President Kamala Harris,” Haley said. “After seeing the debate, everyone knows that’s true. If we have four more years of Biden or a single day of Harris, our country will be badly worse off. For the sake of our country, we have to go with Donald Trump.”
Haley noted that Biden had put Harris in charge of the southern border, which has been in crisis since.
“Kamala Harris had one job—fix the border,” Haley said. “Now, imagine her in charge of the entire country.”