I wanted to do this because Nikki Haley, ambassador to the United Nations, has been very special to me. She’s done an incredible job. She’s a fantastic person, very importantly, but she also is somebody that gets it. She has been at the United Nations from the beginning with us. Right from the beginning, and worked with us on the campaign. It’s been really a long time, very intense, and she told me probably six months ago, she said, you know, maybe at the end of the year—at the end of the two-year period, but at the end of the year, I want to take a little time off. I want to take a little break. She’s been a very successful, as you know, governor of South Carolina, for eight years. And then she did this, and this is possibly been more intense with what’s going on in the world and very dangerous. And a lot of things. But she’s done a fantastic job, and we have done a fantastic job together. We have solved a lot of problems, and we’re in the process of solving a lot of problems. At the beginning, North Korea was a massive problem, and now we’re moving along. It’s moving along really nicely. I can speak for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. He thinks the world of Nikki, and so we’re all happy for you in one way, but we hate to lose you. Hopefully, you’ll be coming back at some point, but you want to just—maybe in a different capacity. You can have your pick. But I just want to let you know, so at the end of the year, Nikki will be leaving. And we’ll be in constant touch. I know that when you have ideas, you’re going to call me because you know all the players.
And that was really the thing I think she did best at the United Nations. She got to know the players. She got to know China, Russia, India. She knows everybody on a very first-name basis, and they like her. Except for maybe a couple, which is normal, they can’t all like you, but they do. They really like her, and I think maybe more importantly, they respect her. So Nikki, I just wanted to tell you that we will miss you. We’ll be speaking all the time, but we’ll miss you nevertheless, and you have done a fantastic job, and I want to thank you very much.
The UN Human Rights Council is a deeply flawed body.
Nikki Haley: Thank you, thank you very much. Well, I want to say, first of all, I want to thank the president for just, you know, allowing us to come out and talk to you this way. It has been an honor of a lifetime. You know, I said, I am such a lucky girl to have been able to lead the state that raised me and to serve a country I love so very much. It has really been a blessing, and I want to thank you for that.
But I’m most excited—look at the two years, look at what has happened in two years with the United States on foreign policy. Now the United States is respected. Countries may not like what we do, but they respect what we do. They know that if we say we’re going to do something, we follow it through. And the president proved that. Whether it was with the chemical weapons in Syria, whether it’s with NATO, saying that other countries have to pay their share. I mean, whether it’s the trade deals, which have been amazing, they get that the president means business, and they follow through with that. But then if you look at just these two years at the UN, we have cut $1.3 billion in the UN’s budget. We’ve made it stronger, we’ve made it more efficient. South Sudan, we got an arms embargo, which was a long time coming. Three North Korean sanctions packages, which were the largest in a generation, done in a way that we could really work toward denuclearizing North Korea. The Iran deal, bringing attention to the world that every country needs to understand: You can’t overlook all of the bad things they’re doing. You have to see them for the threat that they are. I think you look at the anti-Israel bias and the strength and courage that the president showed in moving the embassy, and showing the rest of the world we will put our embassy where we want to put our embassy. You know, all of those things have made a huge difference in the U.S. standing, but I can tell you that the U.S. is strong again. And the U.S. is strong in a way that should make all Americans very proud.