Respect works the same way in politics as it does in the rest of the world: it’s not given, it’s earned. Nikki Haley, President Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, seems to be one of the only people who understands that.
In a new memoir, Haley says former White House chief of staff John Kelly and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged her to “undermine” the president and push a “sidebar plan” to circumvent the president’s chosen policies.
“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.
Their request was “offensive,” Haley told CBS News, because it suggested she was incapable of going directly to the president with her opinions, and that the president was incapable of listening.
“Instead of saying that to me, they should have been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan,” Haley said. “It should have been, go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing. But to undermine the president is really a very dangerous thing.”
Haley seems to have figured out something that never occurred to Kelly, Tillerson, and a handful of other top Trump officials: Treat the president with respect and he might just listen. Treat him like someone in need of a chaperone and you might just find yourself out of a job.
Haley wasn’t Trump’s yes man. She’s made it clear that she opposed Trump’s policies on a number of levels, especially when it came to the United States’s foreign interests and Trump’s relationship with dictators. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, in public and in private.
What Haley did not do is attempt to take matters into her own hands and claim Trump’s governing powers as her own. Perhaps that’s why Haley is one of the only administration officials to exit Trump’s White House without controversy.
Haley’s memoir could be evidence that she’s gearing up for a higher political office — say, in 2024. If she is, she’ll need Trump’s endorsement. The president will likely give it because Haley gave him the respect his office is due. And she didn’t have to sacrifice her integrity or convictions to do so.
