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Haley backtracks on her criticism of Donald Trump

Haley, who criticized Trump last month, now talks about his “winning policies.”

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Former U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley who last month said Donald Trump had let America down, changed her tune Monday and praised the accomplishments of the Trump administration.

“Strong speech by President Trump about the winning policies of his administration and what the party needs to unite behind moving forward. The liberal media wants a GOP civil war. Not gonna happen,” Haley tweeted about Trump’s hour and a half address to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) conference Sunday evening.

That comment is a 180 degree turn from the stinging criticisms she leveled at Trump in an interview with the news website Politico last month in which Haley said: “We need to acknowledge he let us down.”

“He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again,” Haley told Politico.

Those comments appeared to come with a steep price as the former president refused to respond to Haley when she requested a meeting the week after the Politico interview.

Haley, who is widely believed to be organizing a run for the White House in 2024, served for two years as UN ambassador. Since then she had worked to promote Republican Party candidates and had been a vocal supporter of President Trump.

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However, that carefully crafted support ended after the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol building by Trump supporters. Haley said Trump “was badly wrong with his words” at the rally before his supporters attacked the Capitol, calling Trump’s behavior after the Nov. 3 election “deeply disappointing.”

“Haley’s praise and criticism of Trump underscores her apparent strategy of showcasing the achievements of the Trump administration while criticizing Trump’s efforts to upend his presidential election defeat to now-President Joe Biden and his encouragement of those who stormed the Capitol,” Fox News commented.

“Haley realizes that the liberal media blows up any and all Republican criticism of President Trump, attempting to push a GOP civil war. She’s not going to play that game,” a Republican strategist told Fox.

“She parts company when she thinks it’s warranted, but she supports the large majority of Trump policies and applauds his message of GOP unity.”

In an op-ed she wrote for The Wall Street Journal after the Politico interview, Haley painted a rosier picture of Trump, saying the “liberal media… wants to stoke a nonstop Republican civil war” and had used her comments to do so.

“The moment anyone on the right offers the slightest criticism of the 45th president, the media goes berserk,” Haley wrote, apparently trying to distance herself from her harsh criticism of Trump by also praising his achievements in foreign policy and Trump’s lightning campaign that produced coronavirus vaccines in record time.