Haley, who previously criticized the Trump “chaos,” will support him.

TFD – Nikki Haley has officially endorsed Donald Trump for the 2024 election. Despite her previous criticisms of Trump, Haley’s decision highlights her political strategy and future ambitions within the GOP.

Nikki Haley’s political calculus has once again shifted.

The former governor of South Carolina claimed not too long ago that Donald Trump was too elderly, too wild, too “unhinged,” and too prone to outbursts to be president again, adding that he couldn’t defeat Joe Biden.

Before she halted her main campaign in February, Haley declared, “I feel no need to kiss the ring.” “I don’t care what happens to me politically.”

However, she gave the tacit approval on Wednesday that everyone had anticipated. Biden had been a “catastrophe,” according to Haley, even though Trump had not been “perfect” on matters that were important to her, including as foreign policy and the national debt.

I will therefore vote for Trump,” declared the former US ambassador to the UN, who was a member of the former president’s Cabinet.

In 2018, she resigned from her position in the Oval Office before being negatively linked to President Trump’s chaos, despite posing for a nice portrait in front of the fireplace. With 2024 quickly approaching, Haley declared she would not run for president against her former boss, but she did so nonetheless, much to Trump’s enduring ire.

Haley attacked Republicans who supported Trump even though they were secretly depressed about him before Trump defeated her in her home state’s primary earlier this year. “There is a very strong herd mentality in politics,” the speaker stated. Numerous Republican lawmakers have given in to it. Of course, many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump privately dread him. They know what a disaster he’s been and will continue to be for our party. They’re just too afraid to say it out loud.”

Haley is now openly declaring that she would vote for Trump. except if she wanted a future in a party led by its presumed leader, she has little choice except to follow the herd. There’s not much of a path in emulating former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, a onetime rising GOP star, who’s become an example of what happens to conservative foreign policy hawks who refuse to temper warnings that Trump is a danger to democracy.

Haley wants to safeguard her future.

All indications point to Haley’s desire to seek the presidency once more after Trump exits the platform. So, the only personal political goal of rejecting him now would be to end her career on a moral stance. She might be praised for her selflessness by history, but power would probably elude her.

Haley’s action will support the perception that she consistently chooses the political path that best serves her goals. But she can claim to have anticipated Trump’s defeat if Biden prevails in November. She has stated unequivocally that there will be mayhem if Trump is elected to a second term. She could then be positioned to try to lead the GOP back to the pre-Trump positions on foreign policy and the economy that seem closest to her own beliefs, even if she often seemed in 2024 to be auditioning for the leadership of a party that doesn’t exist in any recognizable form.

John Bolton, the former national security advisor to President Trump who has maintained that Trump should never again be allowed near the White House, expressed his disappointment with Haley’s choice. Bolton said to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Wednesday, “I think she has obviously made a political calculation that it is in her interests to support Donald Trump.”

Haley is not the only younger GOP presidential contender with unquenchable ambitions of winning the White House to go through such a metamorphosis; she also won in Vermont and Washington, DC. When his own campaign faltered in chilly Iowa in January, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis chastised Trump and swiftly endorsed him as he was leaving the race, much faster than Haley.

Haley campaigned for cognitive testing for candidates over 75 years old and said that both Biden, who is 81, and Trump, who becomes 78 next month, were too old to be president during her campaign. However, her choice to limit her discussion to Biden’s flaws on Wednesday begs the question of whether her supporters will follow her in endorsing Trump.

Tens of thousands of people have continued to support her in the GOP primary despite her campaign suspension. Her campaign, in which she positioned herself as a go-between for Republicans who detested Trump and want a different candidate, left a living legacy of her popularity. In suburban areas, where the former president faces the greatest challenges, Haley was particularly effective. And the Biden campaign signaled that it would compete for this bloc of wavering GOP voters in November. “There’s always going to be a place for Haley voters in my campaign,” the president said during a fundraiser in the swing state of Georgia over the weekend.

At rallies in New Hampshire and Iowa earlier this year, a number of Haley supporters said that even while they supported her, if Trump defeated her for the nomination, they would most likely remain devoted Republicans. Thus, even though Haley’s choice is replete with political expediency, many of her followers might be debating it as well.

This election presents a more difficult decision for Republicans who detest Trump and are thinking about Biden. Now that Biden is the incumbent, his record of accomplishments and policies—including those related to foreign and economic policy—directly violate the fundamental convictions of a large number of Republicans. Additionally, memories of the Trump administration’s instability have faded. Conventional national security Republicans might also view the world as full of instability and violence, as well as Biden’s escalating conflict with an Israeli prime minister of the right, as grounds not to vote for him. “A lot of Republicans are making the same calculation because the performance of the Biden administration has been so appalling,” Bolton said.

Political aspirations guiding Haley’s decision

Speaking at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington, Haley declared that she would support Trump in her first significant political address since putting her Republican presidential candidacy on hold.

In contrast, Biden has strengthened and expanded US alliances, particularly NATO, which Trump finds repugnant. Since the end of the Cold War, the Western alliance has never had more direction. And Trump might talk a good game on immigration, but he recently derailed the most conservative border bill in decades, apparently because he wanted to deprive Biden of an election-year win and preserve his narrative of a nation under siege.

The tepid nature of Haley’s support for Trump leaves some questions, including whether she will agree to campaign for him and whether she’ll urge her voters to back him. While saying she’d vote for the ex-president, Haley urged him to take steps to reach out to her voters. “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. And I genuinely hope he does that,” she said. Trump has made no effort to appeal to Haley voters during the march to the nomination despite his dire need to court suburban voters. And he was quick to knock down reports recently that the former South Carolina governor could be on his shortlist for the vice presidential nomination.

Any compromise between the two major rivals, nevertheless, would serve as a warning not to take the results of presidential primary contests too seriously. After all, throughout her bid, Haley experienced extremes. She only voiced the mildest criticisms of Trump for months as he attempted to rig the 2020 election in order to retain his position of power. She struggled, like other GOP contenders, to find a way to defeat the outgoing president—who remains enormously popular among the electorate—without upsetting his supporters. When she did turn fully on Trump amid the snows of New Hampshire, it was as an act of last resort as it became clear she had no route to the nomination.

Haley criticized the former president for a “temper tantrum” on the day of his victory in the New Hampshire primary, saying that he had had some “confused moments” in the previous days, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on February 1. Haley posed the following question to the crowd during a speech in Columbia, South Carolina: “Do you really believe he is going to win against Joe Biden when he is spending that much on legal fees? He isn’t. Haley claimed that Trump was “completely insane” and accused the former president of supporting Putin above NATO allies in an interview with Tapper on February 12.

“Whether right or wrong, chaos follows (Trump),” Haley voiced her disapproval at practically all events. “We can’t afford to be in disarray once more—there are too many threats facing our country and too much division within it.”

However, she intends to vote for that kind of “chaos” in November.