Nikki Haley says she will vote for Trump – because Biden is a ‘catastrophe’
Nikki Haley has said she will vote for Donald Trump, in her first public remarks since quitting the Republican presidential primary.
Ms Haley said that while the Republican candidate “has not been perfect”, Joe Biden “has been a catastrophe”.
“So I will be voting for Trump,” she said during an event in Washington.
However, Ms Haley, who served as Mr Trump’s ambassador to the UN, warned the former president against complacency in assuming her supporters were “just going to be with him”.
The 52-year-old declined to formally endorse Mr Trump when she suspended her presidential campaign in March, instead urging him to “earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him”.
Since quitting the race two months ago, she has continued to garner a significant share of the vote in several GOP primary races, prompting Mr Biden to explicitly appeal to her supporters.
Ms Haley made her debut as a fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute on Wednesday, where she delivered a speech warning about the security challenges facing the US and its allies.
Asked whether she felt Mr Biden, 81, or Mr Trump, 77, were better prepared to face America’s national security threats, she made a notable pause before responding.
She said: “I put my priorities on a president who’s going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account, who would secure the border - no more excuses - a president who would support capitalism and freedom, a president who understands we need less debt, not more debt.
“Trump has not been perfect on these policies, I’ve made that clear many, many times. But Biden has been a catastrophe, so I will be voting for Trump.”
Ms Haley continued: “Having said that, I stand by what I said in my [campaign] suspension speech.
“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.”
During her speech, Ms Haley criticised the International Criminal Court’s application for arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials, including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying it “literally is disgusting”.
She was also critical of Mr Biden’s approach to the US relationship with Israel, including his threat to withhold weapons shipments to its ally.
“The Israel betrayal is the bookend of the Afghanistan disaster,” Ms Haley said, in reference to the Biden administration’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.
Ms Haley, a longtime foreign policy hawk, urged America’s leaders to staunchly support Ukraine and Israel, warning Beijing was closely following Washington’s response to both conflicts.
She said: “China is waiting to see if America is stupid enough to throw away the Middle East, Europe and the Asia Pacific all at the same time.”
