Nikki Haley to speak at Republican National Convention
Former Gov. Nikki Haley announces she is suspending her campaign at her headquarters on Daniel Island, S.C. on Wednesday, March 6. 2024 (Abraham Kenmore/SC Daily Gazette)
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will speak at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday after initially not being invited, according to multiple news outlets citing a spokesperson for Haley.
Haley unsuccessfully challenged former President Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. Trump’s selection as the party’s nominee will be finalized at the RNC this week in Milwaukee.
The announcement followed the shooting of Trump Saturday at a rally in Pennsylvania, during which a bullet grazed the former president’s ear. One rally attendee was killed in the shooting, as was the alleged shooter, and at least two other people were injured.
“This should horrify every freedom loving American,” Haley posted on the social platform X following the shooting. “Violence against presidential candidates must never be normalized.”
Haley spokeswoman Chaney Denton could not be immediately reached for comment by the SC Daily Gazette.
Last week Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, released the 97 delegates she had won in the primary with instructions to vote for the former president.
Haley was the last major Republican candidate to challenge Trump. She announced she was leaving the primary after Super Tuesday in March, having won just two races in Vermont and Washington, D.C. She did not endorse Trump at the time, instead wishing him well and saying he should work to win over her supporters.
A month after leaving the race Haley joined the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington.
In late May, Haley said in a speech for the Institute that she would vote for Trump but again stopped short of endorsing him. Trump said he planned for her to be “on our team in some form.”
The primary between Haley and Trump was harsh. Haley questioned the mental competency of Trump and called him chicken for refusing to debate her. Trump called her “birdbrain” and questioned the whereabouts of her husband, who’s deployed in Africa with the South Carolina National Guard.
Haley, born in rural Bamberg to Sikh immigrant parents from India, became South Carolina’s first minority and first female governor when she was elected in 2010. Before that, she was a three-term state House member representing part of Lexington County.
She was halfway through her second term as governor when Trump nominated her to be ambassador for the United Nation, a position she held until resigning in 2018.
