Former Trump ally Nikki Haley says she should lead Republicans

Nikki Haley has set out her vision for a post-Trump path to power for the Republicans as she made her pitch to become the party’s figurehead.

Nikki Haley, main picture, says she is the woman to lead the Republicans. In October, 2018, she resigned as United States Ambassador to the United Nations under Donald Trump's reign (inset). Pictures: AFP

Nikki Haley set out her vision for a post-Trump path to power for the Republicans as she made her pitch to become the party’s figurehead.

Haley, 49, vowed to defend and advance Donald Trump’s “outstanding” policy achievements but made clear that she found his behaviour on January 6 when his supporters stormed the Capitol “indefensible”.

The former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the UN in Trump’s administration is seen as a contender for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. She broke with Trump decisively in an interview last week, saying: “He let us down … we shouldn’t have followed him.” On Thursday she used an article in The Wall Street Journal to try to attract Republicans ready to move on from the former president.

Trump, however, hinted at another run for the presidency as he paid tribute to Rush Limbaugh, the conservative broadcaster who died from lung cancer on Wednesday.

After January 6 the former president’s approval ratings dropped to their lowest but have recovered among Republicans since he went on trial in the Senate. A snap poll after he was acquitted of inciting insurrection showed that 57 per cent of his party wanted him to play a significant role in its future, up 18 points from January 7.

In the same poll 53 per cent of Republicans said they would vote for Trump if the party primary contest were held now, with Mike Pence, his vice-president, a distant second on 12 per cent. Haley was tied for third place with Donald Trump Jr on 6 per cent.

Days after Trump launched a personal attack on Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader and most senior elected Republican, Haley told The Wall Street Journal that it was actually the “liberal media” that was stoking “civil war” in the party.

“Republicans need to be honest about what worked and what didn’t over the past four years,” she said. “We lost our majorities in the House and Senate, and we’ve lost the national popular vote in seven of the past eight presidential elections. Surely there’s room for improvement as a party? We should embrace the successes of the Trump presidency and recognise the need to attract more support.”

She said that although “most of Mr Trump’s major policies were outstanding, many of his actions since the election were wrong and will be judged harshly by history”.

She added: “Mr Trump brought millions of new voters into the Republican Party, for which he deserves great credit, but the party also lost millions of voters. I will gladly defend the bulk of the Trump record and his determination to shake up the corrupt status quo in Washington; I will never defend the indefensible.”

Trump, 74, again claimed that he won the election as he phoned in to three conservative networks for his first post-presidency TV interviews. When asked by Newsmax if he was planning to campaign in 2024, he said: “I won’t say yet but we have tremendous support.”

Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, has denied that she has political ambitions. She told Marco Rubio, the Republican senator for Florida who is up for re-election next year, that she does not plan to challenge him for his seat.

The Times