For a few years now, I have been commenting on the fact that Nikki Haley will try and run for President of the United States.
And, if this were the GOP of 2008 or even 2012, she would be the nearly perfect candidate for the times.
However, this is not the GOP of fifteen or even ten years ago.
This is the party of MAGA, populism, and a dominant Donald Trump.
Translation: she has no shot at winning.
No shot at all. Like zero. Zip. None. Anyone who says otherwise is just dreaming.
Nikki Haley is a neoconservative trying – at least sometimes – to pretend somehow she is MAGA. Remember, she tried that strategy during the Trump years after attacking Truimp during the 2016 election.
Whatever political consultants she is listening to that are telling her she can win should be fired.
Nikki Haley Was ‘Baghdad Bob’
One thing I did not like about Haley back during the Trump years was how bad she was as UN ambassador.
At the time, I called her Baghdad Bob:
“Perhaps I can come up with a better description of Nikki Haley. She was Donald Trump’s very own “Baghdad Bob,” the propaganda chief under Saddam Hussein who appeared on TV during the 2003 Iraq invasion and said anything the regime wanted, no matter how inflammatory or wrong. While Haley was never forced to claim anything so preposterous as that Saddam’s Republican Guard was winning a war against a superpower, her ability to trump even Trump in crazy talk was a rare talent—and not a welcome one.
That was my problem with the ambassador. Not that she did a bad job, not that she was a terrible representative of our nation’s interests, but simply that she lacked of the experience and natural abilities needed in such a role. Spitting back Trumpian rhetoric is not enough to be credible on the world’s stage. It would be like asking me to become a plumber: sure, I could figure it out at some point, but I would leave behind quite a few clogged toilets and busted faucets along the way.
Haley left behind some busted faucets, that’s for sure. If she did make any sort of major impression, it was thanks to her tough talk on North Korea and Iran. But it was her hard-hitting rhetoric leveled at the Kim regime that stuck out the most. In an almost comical attempt to parrot the words of President Trump, who in early September said at the UN that America “has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” Haley stated in November that “if war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed.”
Did she realize that North Korea has its own nuclear weapons that can now hit the U.S. homeland? Anyway, I went on:
“That’s just for starters. There were also the clear missteps, when we could see her lack of expertise and preparation at work. In a primetime interview with Fox News nighttime anchor Martha MacCallum, Haley was asked about the 2018 Olympics and whether U.S. athletes would participate. North Korea experts knew this was the question that would have to be asked, and were keen to see what Haley would have to say.
She blew it, big time. The interview, conducted in January, at a time when some thought a war with the Kim regime was still very possible, drove headlines the world over, as Haley said she would not commit to U.S. citizens participating, stating, “there’s an open question.” MacCallum pounced on Twitter, and rightly so, writing that “Amb. Nikki Haley not certain we should send our athletes to the Olympics. Will depend on NK situation.”
Now, to be fair to Haley, the remarks were more qualified than the press made them out to be. Still, they were confusing to say the least, and show that she was not ready for what was an obvious question. In fact, Haley seemed to stumble, adding, “I have not heard anything about that” and “I do know in the talks that we have—whether it’s Jerusalem or North Korea—it’s about, how do we protect the U.S. citizens in the area?”
And we should not forget she could have started a nuclear war with North Korea – an episode lost to history that Haley would love you to forget about.
The GOP can do far better than this.
BONUS: Kamala Harris Should Quit
BONUS: A Nuclear War over Ukraine?
BONUS: Donald Trump Looks Desperate
Author Expertise and Experience
Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive and serves as President and CEO of Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank. He has held senior positions at the Center for the National Interest, the Heritage Foundation, the Potomac Foundation, and many other think tanks and academic institutions focused on defense issues. He served on the Russia task force for U.S. Presidential Candidate Senator Ted Cruz, and in a similar role in the John Hay Initiative. His ideas have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CNN, CNBC, and many other outlets across the political spectrum. He holds a graduate degree in International Relations from Harvard University and is the author of the book The Tao of A2/AD, a study of Chinese military modernization. Kazianis also has a background in defense journalism, having served as Editor-In-Chief at The Diplomat and Executive Editor for the National Interest.
