It’s hard to know for certain whether Nikki Haley’s decision to step down as the ambassador to the United Nations is basically an autonomous decision or is driven more by the president and his displeasure with her service. There is plenty of ammunition to arm either argument, and so it may be that this is a rare case where it really is a mutual decision.
What’s not really in doubt is that Ambassador Haley is ambitious. Having already served as a state governor and in a cabinet level position, the next step seems fairly obvious. She will seek the presidency and hope that at worst it earns her a place on the ticket as someone’s number two. The big question is whether she will wait until 2024 to make her run.
To be sure, she’s saying all the right things:
Ms. Haley, who has long been seen as a potential presidential candidate, said she had no intention of running for the presidency in 2020, as has been speculated. Instead, she said, she plans to campaign for Mr. Trump’s re-election.
“I think you have to be selfless enough to know when you step aside and allow someone else to do the job,” Ms. Haley said.
Yet, she knows just as well as everyone else that Robert Mueller’s special counsel’s office has accumulated a near phalanx of cooperating witnesses who are providing evidence against the president in the Russia investigation. She knows that the investigation has been on a campaign-related hiatus since Labor Day and will begin making big news again in only a handful of weeks. It is best you make your departure from the administration official before that happens to remove as much of the taint as can be removed. She has already made certain to leave a trail of dissent and disagreement with Trump policies and actions that she can point to in defense of her decision to serve in Trump’s cabinet. She can provide inside information to create further separation if she needs to, while choosing to stay mostly loyal if that seems like the better political choice.
She seems to have things plotted out fairly well, although it’s probably a mistake to agree to serve out the remainder of the year. That may require her to defend the president in ways that will come back to haunt her.
In any case, I wouldn’t take her promises not to run in 2020 and to campaign for Trump’s reelection at face value. Those are promises she can keep if they seem worth keeping, but if things work out they way she hopes she will be breaking them.
This makes sense to me.
Another hypothesis: Trump boots Pence and puts her on the ticket in 2020. You know, to get the women’s vote.
It’s really incidental to this piece but is anyone else getting frustrated with the insistence by the Washington wise talking heads that no one outside the Washington/New York axis is paying any attention to the Mueller probe?
I think they are largely correct on this one. It really isn’t in the news the way it once was and most people have already made up their mind on if he did or didn’t collude if it does or doesn’t matter. Only political junkies and people who are fairly well off or connected consider this a big issue.
People care far more about their job, their financial situation, healthcare, and other day to day items that take far greater priority for simply making it to tomorrow than they do the Russian issue. Then there is the fact that the culture war is going full throttle in a way it hasn’t for years and the intensity of it is growing at an exponential rate.
Lastly Mueller doesn’t leak and we’ve yet to see him go after a Trump. If that does happen expect it to override the SCOTUS issue that’s dominating the news now but until then it’s crack for political junkies but background noise for everyone else.
I don’t see why it matters much whether many people outside of Washington are or are not paying much attention to the Mueller probe. In fact, on the margin it’s probably better that they are not, because that suggests to me that the Republicans really don’t want to talk about it any more. Seems like not very long ago they were orchestrating spin attacks against Mueller and Rod Rosenstein every other week. Perhaps they finally realized that’s not helping them.
What matters is whether people pay attention when Mueller releases the results. I rather think they will.
By the way, I AM paying attention.
I don’t see the MAGA deplorables getting enthusiastic about Haley. Kavanaugh validates their real hatred of women, and not only is she non white, she’s of South Asian descent, who the base regularly deride and attack as terrorists.
Only a trigger the libs white man will do for them.
Come on, that’s not how it works. Nikki Haley was elected governor of South f–ing Carolina, after all.
Ever hear of Dinesh D’Souza? OK, not a woman, but hey, terrorists are usually men, aren’t they?
For that matter, ever hear of Clarence Thomas, Allen West, Herman Cain, Ben Carson, or Mia Love?
Oh, I forgot Bobby Jindal.
Nikki was sent to the UN so she could not challenge the donald for 2020 race. At the UN she has been the perfect female GOP place holder. Votes how instructed, notifies the UN we will no longer participate in anything Obama supported, and make sure there is a photo op if her in front of the Israeli flag.
No More Mister Nice Blog has this theory:
http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2018/10/this-was-day-nikki-haley-became.html
Meanwhile, CNN has a headline asserting that Ivanka Trump is denying reports that she’s going to step into Haley’s shoes.
Pause for guffaws, intermingled with sobs.