U.S. President Donald Trump announced Tuesday in a joint briefing at the White House with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley that he has accepted her resignation.
The president and the ambassador told reporters as they sat together in the Oval Office that Haley would be leaving at the end of this calendar year.
Trump said Haley is “very special to me” and made it clear the issue had nothing to do with bad feeling or dismissal of any kind. He hailed her “good relationship with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo” and said Haley had made her position a “much more glamorous role than it was a couple of years ago.”
For her part, Haley thanked the president for what she called the “honor of a lifetime” and praised the president’s performance over the past two years, saying “the U.S. is strong again in a way that should make all Americans proud.”
She called the president’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, Jared Kushner, a “hidden genius,” in particular praising his foreign policy work: “The Middle East peace plan is so unbelievably well done,” she said.
Responding to questions from the media, Haley made it clear that she has no intention of running for president in 2020, but instead intends to campaign for Trump for a second term. Trump said he hopes she’ll return to serve in another capacity: “You can take your pick.”
In the meantime, however, she has no specific plans on where she intends to go, telling reporters, simply, “I’m a believer in term limits, and I think it’s important to know when it’s time. I think it’s time.”
Nikki Haley has been one of the most vocal and pro-active advocates for Israel in the United Nations the Jewish State has ever had.