OPINION:
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has handed in her resignation, and will leave her post at the end of this year.
What a sad day for America it is. For President Donald Trump, too.
“Hopefully, you’re coming back at some point, maybe in a different capacity,” he said, during a press conference in the White House, alongside Haley. “You can have your pick.”
Her response?
Gratitude and humility, wrapped in a bow of class.
“I’m a lucky girl,” she said at one point. She also put to rest any idea of running for president in 2020.
“No, I’m not running in 2020,” she said. “I just think it’s very important for government officials to know when to step aside. … The truth is [the reason I’m leaving], I want to make sure this administration has the strongest person to fight.”
Haley has been a consistent “America First” voice on the global front, calling out United Nations’ powers for anti-Israel, anti-West rhetoric. Her shoes will be tough to fill — though not impossible (can you say John Bolton, perhaps?).
Anyhow, Axios was the first to report President Donald Trump had accepted Haley’s resignation.
“Haley,” Axios wrote, “discussed her resignation with Trump last week when she visited him at the White House,” and the “news shocked a number of senior foreign policy officials in the Trump administration.”
Trump also said in quick remarks from the White House that Haley had given him a headsup about six months ago that she might want to leave her post at the end of 2018.
So she is.
But her tough stance for America, in the face of an oft-concerted, ugly anti-American U.N. force, will be sorely missed.
Among her notable remarks on the United Nations?
She tweeted in December that “the U.S. will be taking names” of those at the global body who went against U.S. wishes on a key vote.
Then just this February, when Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called for Haley to “shut up,” Haley said: “I will decline the advice I was recently given by … Erekat. I will not shut up. Rather, I will respectfully speak some hard truths.”
And that’s how exactly how Haley played it at the United Nations. Kudos to her for bringing the “America First” message in such an in-your-face manner to the global body. For that, she deserves a nationwide expression of thanks. A standing ovation is truly in order..
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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