Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley defended her claim that Democrats are “mourning” the loss of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in an American airstrike last week.
Haley, 47, who was previously the governor of South Carolina, argued that Democrats in Congress and those vying for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination were mourning Soleimani’s death during a Monday night appearance on Hannity.
“The only ones that are mourning the loss of Soleimani are our Democrat leadership and our Democrat presidential candidates,” she said on the show. “No one else in the world, because they knew that this man had evil veins. They knew what he was capable of, and they saw the destruction and the lives lost based from his hands.”
After facing backlash for her remarks, Haley’s office backed the accusation and explained that “mourning comes in different forms,” in a statement provided to the Dispatch.
“It doesn’t have to be literally crying over the casket like Ayatollah Khamenei,” the statement said. “Leading Democrats are aggressively arguing that we would be better off if Qassem Soleimani was still alive today. That is effectively mourning his death.”
President Trump directed U.S. forces to launch an airstrike that killed Soleimani on Thursday. The administration claimed intelligence showed the general was preparing to attack Americans abroad. The strike was also in retaliation for orchestrating “attacks on coalition bases in Iraq over the last several months.”
Despite Haley’s claims, 2020 Democratic front-runners former Vice President Joe Biden, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren all labeled Soleimani a murderer, but they also questioned Trump’s larger Middle East strategy.
