Nov. 10 (UPI) — Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told CBS News Sunday former White House Chief of State John Kelly and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried to recruit her to work against President Donald Trump.
Haley made the comments to CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell ahead of the release of her book With All Due Respect on Tuesday. The former South Carolina governor, who resigned as ambassador in 2018, said that Kelly and Tillerson were looking for support in defying Trump.
“Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country. Tillerson went on to tell me the reason he resisted the president’s decisions was because, if he didn’t, people would die,” Haley wrote/a> in excerpts obtained by The Washington Post.
Haley said in her CBS News interview that Kelly and Tillerson should have been telling the president their concerns.
“It absolutely happened,” Haley said. “And instead of saying that to me, they should’ve been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan. It should’ve been, ‘Go tell the president what your differences are, and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing.’ But to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing. And it goes against the Constitution, and it goes against what the American people want. And it was offensive.”
While Tillerson declined to respond to Haley’s accusations, Kelly defended his alleged actions.
“If by resistance and stalling she means putting a staff process in place … to ensure the [Trump] knew all the pros and cons of what policy decision he might be contemplating so he could make an informed decision, then guilty as charged,” Kelly told CBS News.
Haley said in the book that she supported many of Trump’s controversial foreign policy moves, including walking away from the Iran nuclear deal, leaving the Paris climate accord and moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
