Nikki Haley will support Trump if he runs in 2024

Top Indian American official Nikki Haley under Trump flip flops about her one time boss.

After breaking with former President Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, the only cabinet ranking Indian American official in a US presidential cabinet, is mending fences with her onetime boss.

Haley, former UN Ambassador under Trump, said Monday she would back Trump, if he decides to run for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination again in 2024 and not challenge him.

“Yes,” Haley, the former Republican governor of South Carolina, said during a news conference at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg when asked if she would support another White House bid from Trump.

Haley, one of the most high-profile potential 2024 contenders, said she would not launch her own presidential campaign “if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about it.”

READ: Indian American Nikki Haley isolated after criticizing Trump (February 25, 2021)

“That’s something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point, if that decision is something that has to be made,” she said.

Haley, had sharply criticized Trump after the January 6 Capitol Hill riot by Trump supporters, telling Politico in a February interview

“We need to acknowledge he let us down.”

“He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

READ: Nikki Haley accuses liberal media of instigating a Republican civil war (February 19, 2021)

Trump had been “badly wrong” in stoking the crowd before the riot, Haley said at the Republican National Committee winter meeting and Trump’s “actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.”

But she struck a different tune about Trump on Monday, specifically defending his recent comments about top Republican leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“I think former President Trump’s always been opinionated,” Haley said when asked about Trump’s comments during a Republican National Committee donor retreat Saturday, CNN reported citing an unnamed person in the room.

“Just because he left being president, that’s not going to stop. But I think what he also talked about were all the successes that he had in the administration.

READ: Indian American Republican leader Nikki Haley breaks with Trump (February 12, 2021)

“And I think that’s what Republicans are uniting on,” she was quoted as saying… Every day (Joe) Biden and Kamala Harris are in office unites the Republicans,” she said referring to the President and his Indian American deputy.

In early 2024 polling, Trump remains the top choice for Republican voters with 54 per cent of them backing him in a Morning Consult/Politico poll conducted at the end of Trump’s impeachment trial.

Former vice-president Mike Pence was next preferred on 12 per cent, with Haley in third on 6 per cent.

Trump has not yet committed to running for president again in 2024, but at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February end, he did hint at a possible run for office again.

“A Republican president will make a triumphant return to the White House. I wonder who that will be?” he said during the speech.

“Who, who, who will that be, I wonder?”

Read more on Nikki Haley:

Trump’s actions will be judged harshly by history: Nikki Haley (January 8, 2021)

Nikki Haley’s group says rise of socialism defined 2020 (December 28, 2020)

Pat Robertson picks Nikki Haley over Trump for 2024 GOP presidential nomination (December 22, 2020)

Haley slams Biden’s immigration policies (December 2, 2020)

Nikki Haley wants diaspora to get involved in American politics (September 2, 2020)

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Nikki Haley resigns as US Ambassador to UN, will leave at year’s end (October 9, 2018)