Well it’s getting serious now. Nikki Haley is naming names:
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley claims two of President Trump’s former senior advisers tried to get her to undermine him to “save the country,” The Washington Post reported Sunday, citing Haley’s upcoming memoir and an interview with her.
According to the newspaper, Haley said former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former White House chief of staff John Kelly would try to get her to work around the president.
“Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren’t being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country,” Haley wrote, according to the Post.
“It was their decisions, not the president’s, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn’t know what he was doing,” she continued.
WOW. That is not going to go well among the base. On the other hand, these guys are already out of the administration, so there’s not much to do about it now. But the big question is this – are there still some other top aides who are in the administration working against Trump? Hmmm.
Haley goes into detail about one of those occasions:
In one portion of the book, Haley reportedly recalls a disagreement with Tillerson and Kelly during an Oval Office meeting over her suggestion that the United States should withhold funding for a U.N. agency that supports Palestinians.
She said she had the backing of Trump’s Mideast envoys, according to the Post.
Kelly and Tillerson, however, argued that cutting aid could lead to violence and greater threats to Israel, as well as reduced U.S. influence, Haley reportedly wrote.
Kelly, she added, later responded to Haley in his office: “I have four secretaries of state: you, H.R., Jared, and Rex. I only need one,” she wrote, referring to Jared Kushner and then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster.
“I was so shocked I didn’t say anything going home because I just couldn’t get my arms around the fact that here you have two key people in an administration undermining the president,” Haley told the Post.
Also, I could see her naming these guys kind of encouraging them to speak out some more. But if that happens, it’ll only rile up Trump’s base even more!