New York – Former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she decided to speak out in support of her former rival at the national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after being asked by Donald Trump in the name of party unity.
Haley, who publicly clashed with Trump on several occasions while still a candidate for the nomination, said the billionaire approached her with a message of unity.
“President Trump asked me to speak at this convention on behalf of unity. It was a gracious invitation and I happily accepted, and I will begin by making one thing perfectly clear: Donald Trump has my unwavering support,” the Republican declared on Tuesday at the Fiserv Forum conclave.
“We have to recognize that there are certain Republicans who don’t agree with Donald Trump 100% of the time. I know some of them, and I want to speak to them tonight. My message to them is simple: you don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take that example from me, I haven’t always agreed with President Trump, but we agree more often than not,” the former presidential candidate argued during the second day of the convention.
“Now, my fellow Republicans, we must not only be a unified party, but we must also expand our party,” Haley added. The former candidate said it is time to put aside differences and focus on what unites us and makes America stronger.
Haley also argued that the country is at a critical moment that the Democratic duo of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris is supposedly unable to handle.
“If we have four more years of Biden or just one day of Harris, our country will be much worse off,” he said.
Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, gave her speech while Trump listened and smiled at times, and received constant applause from the audience.
A week ago, Haley announced she was releasing her 97 delegates to vote in favor of Trump’s nomination at the convention.
In early March, Haley announced that she was withdrawing from the presidential nomination.
With his withdrawal from the race, the Republican National Committee (RNC) formally recognized former President Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee for the US presidency.
At the time, Haley did not outline her support for Trump in her speech. The former South Carolina governor asked the ex-president to win the support of voters who were behind his candidacy. Apparently, that was the requirement for the Republican to decide to support her former rival before the election.
“It is now up to Donald Trump to win back the votes of those inside and outside our party who did not support him. And I hope he does,” he said in his resignation speech.
Haley’s decision came after her defeat on Super Tuesday. At that time, the former US ambassador to the UN under the Trump administration decided to end her aspirations.
The former U.N. ambassador was the only woman in the Republican primaries and the only candidate still in contention for the nomination given Trump’s dominance. As part of her strategy, Haley sought to appeal to voters disgruntled with both Trump and Biden.
Haley had said Trump was “unhinged”
In an interview on NBC’s “Today” in mid-February, Haley said Trump was unhinged and not the person he used to be.
In this way, he justified the support he gave him for his 2016 and 2020 campaigns.
“During the time I was in his administration, I would call him all the time,” Haley said. “If something was wrong…I had a conversation with him about Charlottesville; I had a conversation with him about something he had to say about women; I had a conversation with him about multiple things.”
“The problem is that he is not the same person now that he was in 2016,” she continued. “He is unhinged; he is more diminished than he was, just like Joe Biden is more diminished than he was,” she said.
“We have to see this for what it is,” he said. “This is a fact: he is now saying things that make no sense,” he said.
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