Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sun editorial:

By bending the knee to Trump, former ambassador turns her back on the US

Headlines about Nikki Haley's new memoir say Trump aides John Kelly and Rex Tillerson tried to "undermine" the president by ignoring or resisting his orders.

But based on the alarming facts that have come to light about Donald Trump's behavior during his presidency, it's clear that the two men's intent was instead to protect the United States and the world from Trump's vile and reckless impulses.

Take the very revealing moment of Haley's book when she recounts Tillerson telling her that lives would be lost if Trump were not restrained. Tillerson couldn't have been more right — just ask the families of the Kurds who died after Trump betrayed them last month.

This is a president who has displayed time and again that his cruelty and disregard for human life have no limit, such as when he encouraged troops he'd sent to the U.S.-Mexico border to shoot immigrant protesters throwing rocks. For aides to interfere with such destructive actions is not sabotage, or some sort of political power play. It's a responsible reaction to a clear and present threat to untold numbers of people here and abroad.

So it's commendable that Kelly and Tillerson — the former chief of staff and secretary of state, respectively — were operating with the goal of preventing Trump from creating havoc and quite possibly bloodshed.

That said, Kelly and Tillerson fell short of heroism, because they abandoned their responsibility as leaders and their responsibility to the nation by not going public.

Loyalty to Trump is not the prerequisite for these jobs; loyalty to America is. And with impeachment proceedings underway, both men have a responsibility to reach out to the House if they are aware of crimes Trump committed. Again, loyalty to the nation comes first.

But at least Kelly and Tillerson recognized the danger posed by Trump, and went to at least one of their high-level colleagues with their concerns.

In that, they displayed convictions that Haley, Trump's former U.N. ambassador, doesn't have.

Haley tries to have it both ways on Trump. She complains that he acted inappropriately toward Ukraine, but won't condemn the president. She also wrongly paints Kelly and Tillerson as insubordinate and expresses the alarming belief that it was the job of Trump's aides to carry out his decisions since he was the one who was elected.

Let's be clear: Americans expect Cabinet members to step in if a president is out of control and is putting innocent lives at risk as a result.

Haley is simply an enabler, like so many GOP leaders. That's a pity, because we all had reason to hope she might be bigger than that.

In the end, however, she's proved herself small and prone to corrupting influences of power, just like Sens. Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell and the long list of others who sacrificed the best interests of Americans in the name of serving Trump and his extremist base. Haley, who has been rumored to have presidential ambitions, shows herself as just another coward who is scared of ending up on the wrong end of a Trump hate tweet. She refuses to put the nation first and allows principles to be subsumed by thirst for power.

Her book is a sad testament to her lack of character. When Haley had a chance to stand for America, she stood for Trump instead.