Tag: Nikki Haley

Member Post

 

Haley is going with the whole “sanctimonious” thing to try and put some space between her and Desantis…. maybe trying to win the Dylan Mulvaney-Republican voting bloc. https://redstate.com/bonchie/2023/04/26/nikki-haley-nukes-her-campaign-sides-with-disney-in-ridiculous-attack-on-ron-desantis-n737243 Preview Open

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Republican/Trump Voters Reject McConnell-Haley Narrative

 

Bill of Rights and TrumpSenate Minority Leader (again) Mitch McConnell and Nikki Haley badly miscalculated the American electorate, unless they are willing servants of Xi and the Thirty American Tyrants, furthering what Time proudly celebrated as a grand and good conspiracy against real, legitimate voters in their several states producing the wrong result again. To the extent the McConnell-Haley contingent succeed in clinging to control of the Republican Party, while the left asserts full control over the Democratic Party and the instruments of national power, they will hasten the end of the Republican Party, like the Whigs before them. President Trump and the portion of the real electorate that does not want a socialist America is signaling clearly that they intend to transform the Republican Party, rather than creating a new party from scratch. We are living in very interesting times.

Trump 2020 voters speak clearly:

Suffolk University, in collaboration with USA TODAY, conducts regular polling at the state and national level, along with special topic surveys. The first special topic poll for 2021 has already generated a series of articles and bold headlines. It is well worth your while to read the seven page questionnaire with answers. This is not dense print. It is a few easily read short questions and polling worker instructions, combined with tabulated responses. The instructions indicate that the survey should take six minutes to answer over the phone.

Trump’s Disruptive Foreign Policy

 

The following began its brief life as a comment on another recent post, but after reflection I thought maybe it was cogent enough to stand on its own. On the foreign policy front, I suspect I may be the only one here who has served in Embassies, including during the Trump era. This is what I will say about that.

  1. I’m sure I won’t break any news when I say that most of the foreign policy establishment leans left and is distressed when any Republican is elected but was especially so in 2016. This is not only true of our dear State Department friends but across the entire transnational community of foreign policy elites.
  2. Continuing as Captain Obvious, DJT is a norm-breaker, and the foreign policy community seriously loves it some norms–and resents when they are broken.
  3. Of course, some norms badly needed to be broken. In particular, the national and international foreign policy consensus on China urgently needed to move, and this administration succeeded in catalyzing that movement. The 2017 National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy were masterfully done. They met a critical need to generate a global awakening about the failure of the previous consensus on Beijing, probably best summarized by Robert Zoellick’s 2005 “Responsible Stakeholder” speech. Someone had to end the charade, and it’s worth wondering whether a more conventional administration of either party could have overcome the entrenched consensus to have boldly introduced major-power competition as the new normal–so successfully that even the professionals now agree that we can’t go back to the status quo ante on China.
  4. Israel and the Middle East is the other major area where the foreign policy consensus simply had to be sidelined. I recently spoke to a State Department official who–in the context of a discussion about normalization with the UAE and Bahrain–seethed angrily about how this Administration had trashed 70 years of foreign policy consensus on Palestine. Without irony. Sometimes the conventional wisdom must be firmly rejected.
  5. Getting our allies to finally invest in their own defense is also a plus.
  6. Having said that, we are paying a price for appearing capricious and unnecessarily dismissive of our allies. Sure, they can be difficult, but they remain our allies and we do need to keep them on our side. Those same national security documents make it clear that major-power competition is a team sport, and we have to bring the team along if we’re going to win. And we must win.
  7. Also, the incessantly revolving door of senior officials (especially SecDefs and National Security Advisors) has been extremely disruptive to getting important work done in the international space.
  8. Finally, there’s been a dearth of consistently strong and vocal leadership on our American principles (democracy, rule of law, human rights, etc.), particularly since Nikki Haley stepped down as U.N. Ambassador. Foreign policy requires salesmanship, and ours would benefit from some strength, steadiness, and consistency on these themes.

Bottom line, this administration has served as a corrective to some badly flawed policy. Disruption was absolutely necessary, but at some point should start to give way to stability and focused team-building.

Member Post

 

In the election for President this November I will vote for the Republican candidate. I have made this decision because I believe that the Democrat party has become a nihilistic, anarchist, racial grievance party. Putting it into power would be extraordinarily dangerous. Beyond that I have hated Biden since his attacks on Bork and Thomas […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Member Post

 

I reckon the odds of Donald Trump being removed from office following the impeachment trial are pretty low. But for the sake of conversation, let’s imagine that the Senate defies my expectations and does remove him. Here are the questions I would like to explore. Q1: Who do you think President Mike Pence would choose […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Nikki Loves America

 

Ambassador Nikki Haley believes America is the greatest country in the world, and she’ll tell you why. She thinks well of our society and people, while being clear that she has seen and experienced real racism and sexism and that socialism is making a troubling resurgence in popularity. In her account of her time in the Trump administration, Amb. Haley raises concerns, which she raised publicly while in office, about the arrogance of mere appointed officials, carrying no independent constitutional authority or accountability, while contending that the real Donald J. Trump is always willing to listen and respects respectful, professional, direct expressions of disagreement. Nikki Haley puts this all together in a slim, readable volume: With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace.

The title comes from a small but significant moment in the former South Carolina governor’s tenure as United States ambassador to the United Nations. She had gone out on a national show and spoken the last known administration position on new Russia sanctions. However, President Trump made a different decision when the staffed recommendation came to him, before Amb. Haley’s media appearance.

Instead of the Chief of Staff John Kelly, National Security Advisor Bolton, or Larry Kudlow simply speaking the truth, they went into avoidance mode, until Kudlow made the mistake of saying on the record that Nikki Haley must have just been confused. This painted the only woman in the loop, the U.N. ambassador President Trump had elevated to cabinet-level and given direct access to National Security Council deliberations, as confused, not really in the loop.

Member Post

 

A long article in Politico suggests that Nikki Haley should not wait for the future but should challenge Trump in 2020.  The article begins: “The first time I met Nikki Haley, in 2010, I was a columnist for the Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and she was a little-known state legislator vying for the governor’s mansion […]

Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Haley’s Comet Triggers Soothsayers

 

President Trump an UN Ambassador Nikki Haley at the UN in September, 2018 / shutterstock.com

President Trump and Ambassador Haley had a joint press availability in the White House, which triggered rampant, fact-free speculation in conservative media space. We were even treated to self-appointed guardians of TruMAGA recycling the old innuendos about President Trump being subverted by falsely converted NeverTrumpers, his daughter, and his son-in-law. The truth is so much simpler, but relies on experience unfamiliar to most of the nattering class. It’s about the Benjamins and real leadership; in the end, the sun will come out tomorrow.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are glad to see Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn expanding her lead over Democrat Phil Bredesen in the tight Tennessee Senate race.  They also cringe as UN Ambassador Nikki Haley announces she is resigning at the end of the year, ending two years of clear, principled service on behalf of the U.S.  And Jim unloads on Democrats for suggesting the Kavanaugh confirmation was illegitimate by pointing out that Democrats have declared almost every good election result for conservatives over the past 40 years to be illegitimate for one reason or another.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America discuss the allegation emerging now against Brett Kavanaugh but dating back to the 1980’s, and while the allegation is disturbing, they agree a lot more specifics need to come out before it can be taken credibly.  They also applaud Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for blasting the rank partisanship that has become  a hallmark of Supreme Court confirmation debates.  And they slam the New York Times for clearly implying that UN Ambassador Nikki Haley ordered $52,000 curtains for her ambassadorial residence in New York City, when the same article makes it clear the spending decision was made in the Obama administration.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enjoy watching U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley stand her ground after chief Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow suggests Haley was confused about whether new sanctions had been ordered against Russia.  They also shudder as more horrible allegations come out against disgraced Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens, and because he won’t resign even after top GOP leaders urged him to step down.  They roll their eyes as independent 2016 presidential candidate Evan McMullin remains mired in campaign debt and has missed his last three required filings with the Federal Elections Commission.  And Jim and Greg pay tribute to the remarkable life of former First Lady Barbara Bush.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America salute UN Ambassador Nikki Haley for her clear language and strong defense of American priorities on the world stage.  After briefly condemning The Atlantic’s firing of Kevin Williamson, hey also groan as President Trump and China exchange threats of even more aggressive trade action against one another.  And they scratch their heads as former two-term Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty runs for the job again.

Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America applaud the Trump administration for slapping sanctions on Russia and salute UN Ambassador Nikki Haley for calling out Russia’s chemical weapons attack against a Kremlin critic in Great Britain.  They also chew out Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson for not keeping a better watch over the effort to spend more than $31,000 on a dining set and for possibly misleading the public about it.  And they roll their eyes as President Trump tells GOP donors that Japan engages in unfair trading practices by dropping bowling balls on the hoods of U.S. imports and deeming them unfit for sale in Japan.

Alexandra DeSanctis of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America are deeply disappointed that the Senate is unlikely to pass a bill banning the vast majority of abortion past 20 weeks of pregnancy, but are heartened that most Americans support the restrictions, including a majority of Democrats and a majority of women.  They also hammer “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff for his sleazy efforts to suggest that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is having an affair with President Trump and they praise Haley for her clear and dignified denials.  And they roll their eyes as the Grammy Awards telecast shoehorns Hillary Clinton reading an excerpt from “Fire and Fury” into the show, a move made even more baffling in this #MeToo environment by recent reports that the 2008 Clinton campaign took no action against Hillary’s faith adviser for sexual harassment.

Does Trump Have a Plan for Israel and the Palestinians?

 

When Trump first started to campaign, his statements about the Israel-Palestinian conflict were contradictory and unclear. I think he was trying to find his footing on this complicated and controversial subject. If we look at the journey we’ve all taken with him, we might draw some interesting projections about the future. I’d like to reflect on some of the highlights of his candidacy and his time as President regarding his actions on Israel and the Palestinians.

During his candidacy, he told the Republican National Convention regarding the peace process, “I alone can fix it.” But The Atlantic pointed out:

…the peace process is not a matter of willpower, and it’s not a matter of one person, even the U.S. president. Trump seemed to finally start to grasp just how advanced the level of difficulty on this is while giving remarks with Netanyahu later on Monday night [May 2017].

A Proposal on Embassy Locations

 

128 countries have decided that they have every right to tell another nation what can and cannot be its capital city. Each of these countries marked in green has said that Jerusalem is not Israel’s capital city and that agreeing with Israel that it is should be punished.