NBC’s Today show host Savannah Guthrie received a chorus of praise for grilling former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.
Haley, 47, has been defending the president on her media tour to promote her new book, With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace, which was published on Tuesday. She joined Guthrie on the Today show Tuesday morning for an interview, during which there were many contentious moments.
During the exchange, Haley defended President Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, which has sparked an impeachment investigation over concerns that he withheld military aid to the country in exchange for looking into former Vice President Joe Biden, and explained that she doesn’t think it was an impeachable offense because the “aid flowed.”
Guthrie then questioned her response “with all due respect,” saying, “That doesn’t seem like much of a defense of the president.” The topic led to a tense moment in which Guthrie pushed Haley on whether or not Ukrainian aid was held up and Haley repeatedly pointed out that “it was released.”
“You said, ‘Through it all, we were always placing America first,'” Guthrie read a sentence from Haley’s resignation letter and asked, “How is asking a foreign country to investigate your political rival putting America first? Whose interest is that in? Is it in America’s interest or the president’s personal interest?”
Haley responded, “Ukraine has always been an issue with corruption.”
At one point, Guthrie also asked about the president’s “truthfulness.”
“Savannah, I talked to him multiple times, and when I had issues, he always heard me out. I never had any concern on whether he could handle the job, ever,” the former U.N. ambassador replied.
When Guthrie pressed on, Haley added, “Yes, in every instance that I dealt with him, he was truthful, he listened, and he was great to work with.”
Guthrie’s relentless questioning of Haley led many to praise her on social media.
It is remarkably telling that when a female journalist conducts a hard hitting interview, she immediately trends with tweets using words like “emotional” and “mean.”
Savannah Guthrie, well done.
Twitterverse, boo hiss.
— Amy Lupold Bair (@ResourcefulMom) November 12, 2019
Go @SavannahGuthrie! Hardball questions! I love it!!
— MΞGAN KΞLLΞY HALL (@MeganKelleyHall) November 12, 2019
Brava to Savannah Guthrie. She used her claws. @SavannahGuthrie pic.twitter.com/TS69HpvgCq
— Lorenzo The Cat (@LorenzoTheCat) November 12, 2019
Savannah Guthrie was excellent this morning. There’s no reason Nikki Haley should be allowed to go around selling her book without getting tough questions about the President she worked for and continues to defend.
— SeanKentComedy (@seankent) November 12, 2019
Quite impressed w/Savannah Guthrie taking on Nikki Haley on “Today”. She thought she was going to get all soft book interviews.
She didn’t expect her contradictions, spinning, lies to be confronted — b/c of how media treated her in the past.
Haley now on record defending crazy.
— Michelangelo Signorile (@MSignorile) November 12, 2019
