Former South Carolina governor and the first Indian-American to hold a Cabinet position, Nikki Randhawa Haley, has hinted at a presidential run in 2024. She was giving a speech at her alma mater on Tuesday, November 29, 2022.
The event, titled “The Road to Saving America,” was hosted by the Clemson University chapter of a non-profit organization. Haley, the former United Nations Ambassador, is a Clemson University graduate and Trustee.
According to the University newsletter, The Tiger, she addressed issues before the Republican Party, focusing on reasons why it did not perform as well during the Midterm elections on November 8.
“I’ve never lost a race, and I’m not going to start now,” Haley said at the end of a question-and-answer session following her speech. If we decide to go ahead with it, we’ll give it our all and finish it,” The Tiger reported.
In her speech, Haley blamed her party’s underperformance on the Democrats’ fundraising success, as well as early voting and party unity.
Her talking points were Republican criticism of President Biden’s policies and the current state of the economy. She criticized high government spending, rising debt levels, and the financial difficulties that small businesses were facing, as well as President Joe Biden’s foreign policy decisions.
“31% of small business owners were unable to make their rent payment in October,” Haley was quoted as saying by The Tiger. “Let this sink in,” she said of the state of education. “In America, 70% of eighth graders are not proficient in reading,” she said. “We have to pull our act together.”
In terms of foreign policy, she stated that the withdrawal from Afghanistan had emboldened Russia to invade Ukraine, according to The Tiger.
Haley has also chastised her own party members for not opposing government spending. “Americans deserve better than politicians in Washington wasting billions of their hard-earned dollars on pork projects and special-interest giveaways,” she tweeted on Nov. 30. Conservatives must step up and take the lead, beginning with House Republicans prohibiting earmarks today.”
