Nikki Haley, who served in the Trump administration as ambassador to the United Nations, said Thursday the Biden presidency has been “the greatest gift to America’s enemies since Jimmy Carter.” She advised Republicans to “hunker down, and focus on what matters” as the GOP looks to 2024.
Mrs. Haley, considered a GOP presidential contender, made the remarks at The Citadel, where she became the first woman to receive the Nathan Hale Patriot Award from the school’s Republican Society. Previous recipients have included former President Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence.
“We’re in a fight for America’s future,” Mrs. Haley said. “In Washington, D.C., we have a president and a Congress who are leading the greatest nation in history toward ruin.
“It used to be that Democrats were content to blame America,” she said. “Joe Biden and today’s Democratic Party doesn’t even believe in America.”
Mrs. Haley railed against what she described as the Democrats’ march toward socialism and the party’s harboring of a sense of “self-loathing” that has led to a “loss of confidence and conviction in the American cause.”
“This is a virus more deadly and dangerous than any pandemic,” she said.
Mrs. Haley’s remarks come amid increasing speculation that she will run in the 2024 presidential election, in which Mr. Trump is also expected to run. She has previously stated that she would sit the race out if Mr. Trump were to run in 2024.
Nonetheless, she has continued to leave her mark as the GOP plots its course.
Since leaving her post at the U.N. in 2019, Mrs. Haley has penned a memoir, set up a political action committee, and continued to make her presence known in the Republican Party.
In October, Mrs. Haley was a speaker for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s “A Time For Choosing Speaker Series,” which prompts leading Republicans to speak on the future of the party. Other speakers in the series are former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Tim Scott of South Carolina.
The annual event put on Thursday by The Citadel Republican Society, billed as “the largest Republican club in the South,” has also been a waypoint for many GOP contenders.
In her remarks Thursday, she continued to plot a firm course.
“We can’t just bash the president, his party, and all the problems they’ve created,” Mrs. Haley said. “We have to offer solutions that will lift up all Americans. We have to prove that we can make America strong and proud again.”
“The Republican Party was made for this moment,” she said. “We’re the only ones who can unite our country, who can rescue our cities from anarchy and anger, who can move America forward and upward. We are the only ones who can.”
• This article is based in part on wire-service reports.
• Joseph Clark can be reached at jclark@washingtontimes.com.
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