Nikki Haley said on Wednesday that she will vote for former President Donald Trump in the 2024 general election during her first public appearance since dropping out of the GOP primary.
“I put my priorities on a president who’s going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account who would secure the border,” Haley said during a discussion on foreign policy at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank.
“Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I’ve made that clear many, many times.” she said. “But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump.”
But Haley also urged her former Republican opponent to do do a better job of courting her supporters.
Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they’re just going to be with him,” she said. “And I genuinely hope he does.”
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Although she dropped out of the GOP presidential primary in March, Haley is continuing to rack up a notable share of votes against Trump in states across the country. Just last week, the former Ambassador to the United Nations received 20% of the vote in Maryland, 17.9% in Nebraska and 9.4% in West Virginia.
Haley was the last candidate standing against Trump in the GOP race. In the weeks leading up to her exit from the race, Haley ramped up attacks against Trump – at one point describing him as a “a disaster” for the Republican Party.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Haley’s foreign policy warning
Haley’s comments on the 2024 election came after a nearly 30-minute foreign-policy speech in which she drew sharp comparisons between the current moment and the dawn of World War II.
“Such a crisis is closer than we think,” Haley said. “Joe Biden is rushing toward it, and some Republicans would move us toward war as well.”
Her sharpest condemnations in the address were targeted at the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas War. Haley admonished the Democratic president for threatening to withhold weapons from Israel, arguing that such an action thrusts the U.S. closer to direct conflict.
“Israel is fighting America’s enemies. Not just Hamas, but also Hezbollah, the Houthis, and most of all, Iran.” she said. “Biden gave our enemies a green light for more bloodshed.”
Biden earlier this month said he would halt the shipment of weapons to Israel, after acknowledging that some had been used to kill civilians in Gaza. The Democratic president’s administration says it has only withholding one weapons system over concerns about a major ground operation in Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians had been sheltering.
Haley during her speech also addressed Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash on Sunday.
The former diplomat said the “crash couldn’t have happened to a worse person,” adding that, “the people of Iran are better off without him.”
And Haley directed some ire toward Republicans in Congress, who for months opposed a funding package that would have boosted Ukraine’s ability to fight. While Haley said she supported the GOP lawmakers’ goal of decreasing U.S. foreign aid, she argued that funding for countries like Israel and Ukraine isn’t the same.
“It’s an investment in a world in which authoritarian dictators cannot run roughshod over free countries,” she said.
“We can turn inward, but the outside world won’t leave us alone,” Haley warned. “Failing to act is the worst action of all. And delaying will only lead to more difficult decisions—and a greater chance of catastrophe.”
Contributing: Francesca Chambers, USA TODAY
