Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley claims in a new memoir that two of Trump’s senior advisers undermined and ignored him in what they claimed was an effort to “save the country.”
Former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly and former secretary of state Rex Tillerson attempted to recruit Haley to work around and subvert President Trump, but she refused, Haley writes in a new book, “With All Due Respect,” which also describes Tillerson as “exhausting” and imperious and Kelly as suspicious of her access to Trump.
“Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,” Haley wrote.
“It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” Haley wrote of the views the two men held.
Haley also wrote that Tillerson told her that people would die if President Trump was unchecked.
In the book, which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release Tuesday, Nikki Haley offers only glancing critiques of her former boss, saying she and others who worked for President Trump had an obligation to carry out his wishes since he was the one elected by voters.
In a New York City interview with The Post about the book release, Haley also dismissed efforts by the Dems to impeach President Trump. She said she opposes Trump’s efforts to seek foreign help for political investigations in a call with Ukraine’s president, but that the actions are not impeachable.
“There was no heavy demand insisting that something had to happen. So it’s hard for me to understand where the whole impeachment situation is coming from, because what everybody’s up in arms about didn’t happen,” Haley said.
“So, do I think it’s not good practice to talk to foreign governments about investigating Americans? Yes. Do I think the president did something that warrants impeachment? No, because the aid flowed,” she said, referring to nearly $400 million in sidelined military aid.
“And, in turn, the Ukrainians didn’t follow up with the investigation,” Haley said.
Haley also wrote that Tillerson and others had an obligation to carry out the president’s agenda because he had been elected, not them. If they disagreed strongly enough, she said they should quit.
“I was so shocked I didn’t say anything going home because I just couldn’t get my arms around the fact that here you have two key people in an administration undermining the president,” Haley said in The Post interview.
On another occasion, Nikki Haley stated that Kelly stalled and put her off when she wanted to get in to see President Trump. When she went around him, he complained. Kelly also made it clear that he thought Trump’s decision to make her a full member of the Cabinet, and have her attend National Security Council meetings, had been “terrible,” and that he would ensure the next U.N. ambassador did not carry that rank, she wrote.
