Trump’s former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley announced herself as a 2024 presidential candidate on Tuesday. The 51-year old released a video shot in her hometown of Bamberg, South Carolina.
“I’m Nikki Haley, and I’m running for president,” she said in the video.
Known as South Carolina’s first woman and first person of colour to be elected governor in 2010, when she was just 38, Haley decided to throw her name in the presidential race — after weeks of speculation and rumours.
She was an accountant before taking over from Larry Koon in 2004 as a member of South Carolina’s state house of representatives. In 2016, when Trump won the presidency, Haley was appointed US ambassador to the UN — a role she kept until 2018.
Let’s take a look at who she is, what she stands for and the reactions to her announcement.
Daughter of Indian Immigrants
Haley is the child of immigrants from India. She has publicly expressed the importance of her race, gender and ethnicity in establishing her values as a politician and what she hopes to change for the country.
“I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not black, not white. I was different,” she said in her announcement video.
“But my mum would always say, ‘Your job is not to focus on the differences, but the similarities.’
“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.”
Her family’s personal experience with racism has led her to back a range of social justice issues, including the removal of the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the South Carolina Capitol after the 2015 Charleston church shootings.
At the time, Haley recounted an incident when she was a child, watching her father endure the shame of having two police officers stand by waiting to watch him pay for items at a produce stand.
“I remember how bad that felt,” she had said. “And my dad went to the register, shook their hands, said thank you, paid for his things and not a word was said going home. I knew what had just happened.”
“That produce stand is still there, and every time I drive by it, I still feel that pain. I realised that that Confederate flag was the same pain that so many people were feeling.”
A week after the shootings, Haley said “We are not going to allow this symbol to divide us any longer.”
“The fact that people are choosing to use it as a sign of hate is something we cannot stand. The fact that it causes pain to so many is enough to move it from the Capitol grounds. It is, after all, a Capitol that belongs to all of us.”
What does she stand for?
Despite being the child of immigrants, Haley is tough on immigration: in June 2011, in her first year as governor, she signed a bill that required police to check the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest for any reason at all and suspect may be in the US illegally.
Voto Latino, a Washington-D.C based organisation that aims to encourage young Hispanic and Latino voters to register to vote, released a statement in the last 24 hours reminding the public of Haley’s decision to sign “a discriminatory and regressive … measure that allowed police officers to require the immigration papers of anyone [who] is stopped and suspected of being in the country without documentation”.
She is big on education reform. In 2014, she signed a bill that redistributed money to districts with the highest poverty levels, providing $US29 million to place reading coaches in every South Carolina school.
A further $US29 million was provided to help schools with improving tech, including bandwidth, expand wireless access and ensuring every student has access to computer or tablet.
“We said technology is not just for wealthy school districts, it’s for all school districts,” Haley said at the time.
“We can no longer in South Carolina educate children based on where they live. We have to educate children based on that they deserve a good education.”
Her announcement
“You should know this about me: I don’t put up with bullies,” Haley said in her three and a half minute video. “And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.”
She spoke about the importance of believing in the promise of freedom in the U.S; a country she called the “freest and greatest in the world.”
“Some think our ideas are racist, and wrong — nothing could be further from the truth.”
She goes on to list the human rights violations in other countries, including China (“they commit genocide”) and Iran (“They murder their own people for challenging the government”).
“Republicans have lost the popular vote in 7 out of the 8 presidential elections, but that has to change,” she continued, before calling Joe Biden’s current administration “abysmal”.
“The Washington establishment has failed us over and over again. It’s time for a new generation of leadership,” she said.
“To rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our borders and strengthen our country our pride and our purpose.”
Reactions to her announcement:
Apparently, Trump, 76, isn’t too fussed about Haley’s presidential bid. Last month, he told reporters: “She called me and said she’d like to consider it. And I said you should do it.”
His Make America Great Again MAGA committee however sang a different tune, releasing a statement on Tuesday calling Haley “just another career politician.”
“She started out as a Never Trumper before resigning to serve in the Trump admin,” Taylor Budowich, Head of MAGA said. “She then resigned early to go rake in money on corporate boards. Now, she’s telling us she represents a ‘new generation.’ Sure just looks like more of the same, a career politician whose only fulfilled commitment is to herself.”
The Democratic party also unleashed some criticism, accusing Haley of embracing “the most extreme elements” of Maga’s agenda.
“She … couldn’t even identify a policy difference between herself and Trump,” the Democratic’s national chairperson, Jaime Harrison, said in statement issued after Haley’s announcement.
“Her governorship in South Carolina included signing an extreme abortion ban into law with no exceptions for rape or incest, endorsing a plan to end Medicare as we know it, pushing for tax cuts that benefit the ultra wealthy and corporations, and refusing to expand Medicaid to provide affordable health care access for hundreds of thousands of South Carolinians.”
At this stage, Trump and Haley are the only two Republicans who have announced their presidential bid, while ten Democrats have launched campaigns or exploratory committees.