President Donald J. Trump and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley arrive Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, to the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, where they participated in the Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Better late than never? Former Ambassador to the U.N., former governor of South Carolina, and former primary opponent of Donald Trump, Nikki Haley has finally come around to endorsing Trump with an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. She writes:
Millions of people love Donald Trump, and millions hate him. Each group will vote accordingly.
But there are also millions whose views on Mr. Trump are mixed. They like much of what he did as president and agree with most of his policies. But they dislike his tone and can’t condone his excesses, such as his conduct on Jan. 6, 2021. This third group of Americans will determine whether the former president returns to the White House.
To that group, I’ll point out that Mr. Trump isn’t the only one on the ballot. This election isn’t a referendum on him. It’s a choice between him and Kamala Harris.
I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100% of the time. But I do agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Ms. Harris nearly all the time. That makes this an easy call. Here are the facts most relevant to me.
Americans today on average face some $13,000 in higher annual costs than they did four years ago. Prices on nearly everything—food, gasoline, utility bills, insurance—have gone up. This is the direct result of the Biden-Harris agenda, which stoked inflation and stuck families with the bill. Americans are stuck with another bill, too: the national debt. It has reached nearly $36 trillion, thanks in part to Ms. Harris’s tie-breaking votes on the grossly misnamed American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act. Despite its title, the latter is still boosting inflation. Its estimated price tag has more than doubled since President Biden signed it, and it is funding projects that are largely stalled. As president, Ms. Harris would make America’s fiscal crisis even worse.
Then there’s national security. The Biden-Harris agenda has made the world far more dangerous. Our southern border is our most pressing security threat; Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have made it dramatically worse. Their debacle in Afghanistan not only created a new terrorist state; it also signaled weakness that sparked Russia’s war against Ukraine. Their appeasement of Iran has enriched that despotic regime and emboldened it to pursue war with Israel through its terrorist proxies. And the administration’s weakness toward China has done nothing to impede the communist power’s expansion at our expense. This is the world that Biden-Harris failures have given us in four short years.
A Trump administration would be different. It wouldn’t be perfect. But I agree with Mr. Trump that we need to keep taxes low and cut them more. I agree that we need to roll back trillions of dollars in special-interest handouts. I agree that we need to expand American energy to empower our families and job creators while making us less dependent on foreign energy.
I agree with Mr. Trump that America should be strong—far stronger than we are today. When he was president, Russia didn’t invade another country, Iran was on its heels, China received serious pushback for the first time in decades, and our southern border was more secure. The world is unsafe under Biden-Harris, and we shouldn’t expect that to change under a Harris administration.
These are enormous policy differences that will affect the lives of every American and much of the world.
Will Mr. Trump do some things I don’t like in a second term? I’m sure he will. If that was the question before voters, then I imagine Mr. Trump would lose. But that isn’t the question in any election. No politician gets everything right. For those of us clear-eyed enough to see Mr. Trump’s flaws and honest enough to acknowledge them, the question is whether we’re better off with his policies or his opponent’s. On taxes, spending, inflation, immigration, energy and national security, the candidates are miles apart. And Mr. Trump is clearly the better choice.
Read more here.
