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Former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley faced stinging backlash this week for calling out President Donald Trump’s recent treatment of Ukraine, as social media commenters rushed to remind her she endorsed him.
Haley on Wednesday linked in an X post to an Axios article reporting that Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator without elections.” Ukraine is currently under martial law and cannot hold elections during the war launched by a 2022 invasion by Russia. Zelenskyy later said Trump is living in a Russian “disinformation space.”
Haley called Trump’s comments in the post “classic Russian talking points,” and “exactly what Putin wants.”
Democratic California Representative Eric Swalwell fired back on X to ask Haley: “Why did you help him win?”
Trump’s administration is currently working to end the war between Russia and Ukraine without including Ukraine in the negotiations. Trump has falsely claimed Ukraine started the war.
Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence earlier expressed a similar position to Haley’s, writing on X this week: “Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth.”
A stark difference between Pence and Haley is that the former vice president didn’t endorse his ex-boss in the election, while Haley did.
Haley ran as a Republican presidential candidate during the last election cycle. Early last year she called Trump “unhinged,” and he threatened to bar her donors from MAGA. Before that, Haley served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2017 to 2018.
Once it became clear Trump would become the Republican nominee for president, Haley dropped out of the race and endorsed him as she had previously done in 2016.
At the Republican National Convention last July, she called on GOP voters to rally behind the then-former president to “save” the country.
“You don’t have to agree with Trump 100 percent of the time to vote for him. Take it from me,” Haley remarked from the convention stage.
“I haven’t always agreed with President Trump. But we agree more often than we disagree. We agree on keeping America strong. We agree on keeping America safe. And we agree that Democrats have moved so far to the left that they’re putting our freedoms in danger,” she added.
As that disagreement flared again this week, a flurry of critics quickly reminded the former ambassador that she had endorsed the president.
“You shouldn’t have endorsed him, after telling us how awful he was, before going to work for him, then telling us how awful he was again, then endorsing him again,” one X user scolded.
Julie Roginsky, an American Democratic Party strategist, ordered Haley to “take a seat,” adding: “You endorsed him, even though a second-grader could have seen this coming.”
Addressing a group of governors on Friday, Trump said he has had better conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin than Zelensky about ending the three-year war.
“They don’t have any cards, but they play it tough,” said Trump about Ukraine. “But we’re not we’re not going to let this continue. This war is terrible. It wouldn’t ever have happened if I were president. But it did happen.”
While campaigning, Trump repeatedly said he would end the war between the two countries in one day once elected president
In a recent interview with Fox News, Trump said he has been watching the Ukrainian president negotiate for years with “no cards.”
“He has no cards,” said Trump. “And you get sick of it. You just get sick of it. And I’ve had it.”
In an interview with Face the Nation last year, Haley said of the war: “The worst thing we can do is walk back from our friends right now. And so we need to be a friend to Ukraine, not make them beg.”
