Nikki Haley says she will vote for Trump ‘chaos’ she once opposed

Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Wednesday she will vote for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, even though she has previously called him “not qualified” to lead the nation.

The former South Carolina governor had argued that Donald Trump was too old, too chaotic, too “unhinged” and too prone to temper tantrums to be president again and said he couldn’t beat President Joe Biden. “I feel no need to kiss the ring,” Haley said in February before suspending her primary campaign. “My political future is of no concern.”

Haley, in her first political public appearance since suspending her campaign, announced “I will be voting for Trump.” She delivered the implicit endorsement everyone knew was coming sooner or later. Haley said that while Trump had not been “perfect” on issues that matter to her, like foreign policy and the national debt, Biden had been a “catastrophe.”

Speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., Haley added, “Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech.”. In her speech suspending her campaign back in March, Haley said she has always supported the GOP nominee, but quoted former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who said, “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.”

Before losing her home state’s primary to Trump earlier this year, Haley lashed out at Republicans who backed Trump despite privately despairing over him. “In politics, the herd mentality is enormously strong,” she said. “A lot of Republican politicians have surrendered to it. … Of course, many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump privately dread him. They know what a disaster he’s been and will continue to be for our party. They’re just too afraid to say it out loud.”