Ex-US envoy to UN says top Trump aides tried to recruit her to undermine president

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NEW YORK, Nov 11 (APP): Former United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has claimed that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly tried to recruit her to work around President Donald Trump in an effort to “save the country”, according to The Washington Post .

Haley, who is of Indian origin, makes the claim in a book, ‘With All Due Respect’, that will be published on Tuesday.

She writes that “Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,” according to the Post, which said it had obtained a copy of the book.

“It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” Haley reportedly says in the book. She also claims Tillerson told her people would die if all of Trump’s policy impulses were carried out.

“I was so shocked I didn’t say anything going home because I just couldn’t get my arms around the fact that here you have two key people in an administration undermining the president,” Haley told the Post after one disagreement with Tillerson and Kelly over cutting aid to the U.N. relief agency for Palestinian refugees.

When asked about Haley’s portrayal, Kelly told the Post that if supplying the president with advice to help him “make an informed decision is ‘working against Trump,'” then he is “guilty as charged.”

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Haley’s claims echo elements of Bob Woodward’s 2018 book “Fear: Trump in the White House,” in which he described Trump aides working to hide documents from the president so he couldn’t sign them, trying to persuade him out of what they considered bad ideas and working to control his impulsive nature. That book also reported that Kelly had called Trump an “idiot.”

Haley resigned from her post last year. Unlike many other former Trump staffers that have either been ousted or left due to disagreements with the president, she has since remained a staunch supporter of the president. Trump has similarly praised her on numerous occasions. The two sat side-by-side in the Oval Office to announce her resignation last October, during which Trump praised her as a “fantastic person” who has performed an “incredible job.”

“We’ve solved a lot of problems and we’re in the process of solving a lot of problems,” the president said, adding that if she chooses to return to his administration, Haley can have her “pick” of jobs.

During an interview with “CBS Evening News” last week, Haley said she opposed Trump’s impeachment, which the House of Representatives is currently considering allegations that the president withheld military aid to Ukraine in a push for that country to announce investigations that would benefit him politically.

Haley said impeachment is akin to the death penalty for a public official. She said it wasn’t warranted in this case because Ukraine did not open the investigations and Trump released the aid.

“The biggest thing that bothers me is the American people should decide this. Why do we have a bunch of people in Congress making this decision?” she said.

During her tenure at the United Nations, Haley repeatedly exhibited her bias against Pakistan by backing Trump’s decision to cutoff aid to Pakistan for allowing terrorist safe havens on its soil.

Born as Nimrata Randhawa to Sikh parents who migrated from Indian Punjab, Haley has since converted to Christianity. She is married to Michael Haley, an officer in the South Carolina Army National Guard.

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