By Tim Hains – 11/11/2019
“CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell interviews Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and Trump administration Ambassador to the United Nations, who talks about the president’s rhetoric and tweets and being asked by fellow Cabinet members to take sides against the president.
Haley condemned [former WH chief of staff] John Kelly and [former Secretary of State] Rex Tillerson for having a “sidebar plan” against the president, saying their behavior went “beyond the Constitution” and was “offensive.”
“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. It should have been, go tell the president what your differences are and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing,” Haley said. “But to undermine the president is really a very dangerous thing.”
“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 writes in a new book. “Tillerson went on to tell me the reason he resisted the president’s decisions was because, if he didn’t, people would die.”
O’Donnell asked Haley: “You memorialized that conversation? It definitely happened?”
“It absolutely happened,” said Haley. “And instead of saying that to me, they should’ve been saying that to the president, not asking me to join them on their sidebar plan. It should’ve been, ‘Go tell the president what your differences are, and quit if you don’t like what he’s doing.’ But to undermine a president is really a very dangerous thing. And it goes against the Constitution, and it goes against what the American people want. And it was offensive.”
John Kelly responded, telling “CBS Sunday Morning”: “If by resistance and stalling she means putting a staff process in place … to ensure the (president) knew all the pros and cons of what policy decision he might be contemplating so he could make an informed decision, then guilty as charged.”
O’Donnell asked: “Do you think ultimately the president will be impeached and removed from office?”
Haley replied: “No. On what? You’re gonna impeach a president for asking for a favor that didn’t happen and giving money and it wasn’t withheld? I don’t know what you would impeach him on. And look, Norah, impeachment is, like, the death penalty for a public official. When you look at the transcript, there’s nothing in that transcript that warrants the death penalty for the president.”
“To be clear, it was not a complete transcript. There are still things that are missing from it. And in it, he does say, ‘I would like you to do us a favor, though.'”
“The Ukrainians never did the investigation. And the president released the funds. I mean, when you look at those, there’s just nothing impeachable there. And more than that, I think the biggest thing that bothers me is the American people should decide this. Why do we have a bunch of people in Congress making that decision?”
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