Nikki Haley: “Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference.”
US President-Elect Donald Trump has named South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley as his top pick for becoming the US ambassador to the United Nations, someone he’s previously said is an ’embarrassment’ to the people she represents.
If confirmed by the Senate, Haley would replace Samantha Power, who has represented the US in the role since 2013.
And it might just see Haley take on one of the toughest jobs going – especially as the role will see her having to explain and negotiate the Trump Administration’s foreign policy with the rest of the world.
Haley is the daughter of Indian immigrants and has served as her state’s first minority and first female governor. She responded to the nomination by stating the US “faces enormous challenges” both domestically and internationally, and that she feels a “sense of duty” to accept the offer.
A critic of Trump, Haley supported rival Senator Marco Rubio during the Republican primaries, something that may have kept her off the list of vice-presidential candidates, according to the New York Times.
Haley called out Trump’s failure to condemn the Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist groups earlier this year during a rebuttal to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, and once told the NBC that she believes Trump has contributed to “irresponsible talk.”
“Some people think that you have to be the loudest voice in the room to make a difference,” she said during her address. “That is just not true. Often, the best thing we can do is turn down the volume.”
Trump responded by calling her “weak on illegal immigration.” He tweeted in March that “the people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!”
Haley joined her mother’s clothing business Exotica International in 1994, which went on to become a multimillion-dollar company. Later elected to the board of directors of a local Chamber of Commerce, she then went on to become treasurer of the National Association of Women Business Owners. Upon first entering politics, she ran on an anti-tax, fiscal conservative and education platform. She has no previous diplomatic experience.
