What Nikki Haley Really Thinks Of Trump

To the everyday American, what would you say that you learned about how to still get the job done despite your differences and not letting that get in the way of being successful? That's a good question. We all have to work with people maybe we don't like or difficult. Yeah, it's a great question. You know, first of all, I think before you take a job, you have to set yourself up for success. So when Trump originally asked me to be a part of his first administration, I remember getting a call from Reince Priebus and he said, you know, President-elect Trump wants you to come to New York. He wants to talk to you. And I said, about what? I loved being governor of South Carolina. I had no want to leave. And he said, he wants to talk to you about secretary of state. And I said, secretary of state? I said, Reince, I'm a governor. I can't be secretary of state. And he said, well, he wants to talk to you. You need to come. So I go meet with Trump, and I had known him before. We had known each other for years. He had been a supporter of mine in the governor's race. We had been friends. And so I went and I said, look, first thing is, I'm not your person. I'm happy to help you find someone, but we've got a lot of issues in the world. You need someone that doesn't have a learning curve. But I'm going to be here to help in any way I can. So we chatted about foreign policy and some things. So, So Reince calls me a couple of days later, and he's like, don't say anything, just listen. By the way, I want to point out to our audience, Reince Priebus, chairman of the GOP at the time, on Trump's staff. Went on to be his chief of staff in the first. That's right. So he said, don't say anything. U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. I said, Reince, I don't even know what the United Nations does. I just know everybody hates it. And he said, he's going to call you. I need you to be ready. So I go and I tell my husband. My husband's looking at this. He's, Nikki, I think you'd be good at this. So president calls. He says, all right, Nikki, are you going to do this? And I said, well, sir, there'd have to be conditions. He said, okay, what? I said, well, I'm a policy girl. So I'd want to be, you know, on your national security council so I can be part of when you make decisions. He said, done. And I said, well, you know, I'm a governor. I don't want to work for anyone else. I'd want to work directly with you. So it needs to be a cabinet position. He says, done. And I said, look, I'm not going to be a wallflower or a talking head. I need to be able to say what I think. And he said, that's why I want you to do this. And he was true to his word from the first day to the last day. So he and I had a great working relationship in the first administration. If he was, you know, everybody says, well, how'd you get out of there without a tweet? And the answer is, I told him the truth. He was doing something good. I supported, I worked hard, I made it happen. I made America look good. If he was doing something wrong, I showed up in his office or I picked up the phone and said, you cannot do this. But instead, you could do X, Y, or Z. I always gave him options. And he would say, well, how do you see that playing out? And we would talk through it. He respected the fact that I would tell him the truth. And he knows I saved him sometimes. So we actually got along very well. When I ran for president, It was, you know, we had seen the fall of Afghanistan. We had seen all of these issues playing out around the world. And I knew that the country was craving someone younger. They had just gone through Joe Biden. They had just gone through all of this. And so, you know, what people don't realize is I called him first. And I called him and I said, look, this is, you know, I'm going to run. I think that, you know, we need a newer generation. We need someone that can go in and get these things done. And he was like, well, you know, I love you. He said, but, you know, I really, you know, I hate that you're doing this, but you have to do what you want to do. And the reason I called him was because one, he gave me the job out of respect. I wanted to call him. And secondly, it was the right thing to do. And so then, you know, we get into a campaign, campaigns are better, you know, campaigns can be. That's very different. It is. But, you know, at the end of it, the reason I came back and said that I was going to vote for him and that I supported him was it's not on. You can either vote on personality or you can vote on policy. I didn't agree with Trump on everything, but I agreed with him on most things. I didn't agree with Kamala on anything. So, you know, I was always very true to myself on what I thought I needed to do. And so that was kind of my relationship with Trump. And we should all pray for him to do well. I mean, that affects our country at this point. I love what you said that, I love it. People don't realize that you called him ahead of time, but there's a theme here that in working with him that first time around, you were just very honest, number one. Number two, I took away that you did it in private. There was no grandstanding. To this question, I think that in the corporate world or in the small business world, if you're in an office setting, and this is real for a lot of people watching this, I love the job or I at least like it, I need it, but I'm dealing with a manager who's a jerk. This is real talk. I'm dealing with some coworkers who may be gossiping or they're not kind or whatever. You've got this tension between, I need this job, I got to be an adult. I learned something there that certainly in the world of politics, you were very clear, but you also showed some honor there by going privately to him going, you can't do this. You're doing this wrong. I love this question because I think that so many people are afraid to confront because confrontation has become a dirty word when in all reality, if it's done well in your world of politics. We call that being a good ambassador, right? We call that diplomacy. Well, and I think there's a few things here. I mean, the first I'll say to the drama. Don't ever get involved in office drama. You know, I would, my office at the U.S. mission was in New York. You know, the White House is obviously in D.C. I would go for National Security Council meetings, and I would turn around and get back to New York as fast as I could. I didn't do the parties in D.C. I didn't do the drama in D.C. I didn't want any of that. I was focused on my job. If I had done that, there was a whole Trump world that had all kinds of things going on. I didn't want that. The second thing is. When you're dealing with a boss that can be challenging, they are the boss, and you have to respect them for being the boss. That's why if you have a disagreement, give options. Let them be the one. The reason it worked well is I didn't just tell Trump, no, don't do this. I would say you can reach the same goal by this or this. Give options so that you can show that you're not just saying, and that's true for anything. Don't just say no to something. Okay, if you're going to say no, what's the yes? How do you do it instead? You can't just go and say no to everything. And so I think that's the lesson in it. And it'll make your life better, and it makes the person you work with feel better.