My first thought on hearing that Donald Trump has selected South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley to be his ambassador to the United Nations was that it might help mitigate the growing perception that he’s building a white nationalist team of caucasian men of near-retirement age. Haley is an (Asian) Indian-American woman.
My second thought was that she has almost no relevant experience.
My third thought was that she was a fairly strong critic of Trump and maybe not someone who will work naturally as part of his national security team, but at least she isn’t just an echo of other opinions.
But my final thought was more conspiratorial. In nominating Gov. Haley, Trump opens up a vacancy in the governor’s mansion in Columbia that will be filled by Lt. Gov. Henry McMaster. McMaster initially endorsed South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham for president but then surprised Graham by being the first elected official in the Palmetto State to endorse Trump.
In an interview with The Post and Courier, Graham said Thursday that although he doesn’t “know what Henry’s thinking is,” he admires McMaster.
“He is one of my dearest friends,” Graham said. “I think he will be helpful to Mr. Trump. He will give him so[me] legitimacy, sort of, in the establishment lane.”
Graham added that the endorsement surprised him “a little bit. But politics is politics.”
It should be remembered that Trump humiliated Sen. Graham during the primaries by releasing his private cell phone to the public and alleging that Graham had called him to beg for money.
McMaster is indeed an establishment Republican. He served as the GOP chairman for his state from 1994 to 2001, then spent eight years as the Attorney General.
He’s not overly controversial, although he has belonged to a golf club for decades that doesn’t seem to accept black members. He’s also been surrounded by some unsavory news in recent years with his chief of staff getting popped for drunk driving, one brother getting arrested for breaking into (or “tampering with”) a car and “discharging a firearm while under the influence of alcohol,” and another brother getting charged with “forcible fondling,” which is something the president-elect seems to know a thing or two about. In this case, though, the victim was a male waiter at the exclusive Palmetto Club.
Presumably, taking over as governor next year will give McMaster a leg-up as he seeks to win a primary and then general election to serve a full-term as Haley’s successor.
Appointing Haley to serve at the United Nations therefore can accomplish a few things of interest to Trump at once, although her actual ability to serve the nation in that capacity could be quite far down the list.
It may be more important to have a loyalist in place in a key early voting primary state.
In retrospect, the Washington Post‘s reporting of McMaster’s endorsement does look intriguing.
The endorsement from McMaster, a longtime ally of Gov. Nikki Haley, caught many Palmetto State Republican strategists by surprise — in no small part because of the simmering feud between Trump and Haley. The Republican governor’s party-sanctioned response to President Obama’s State of the Union address this month made pointed jabs at the tone and tenor of Trump’s campaign.”
At a minimum, the appointment of Haley is a way of rewarding McMaster.
So, keep that in mind.
Lack of experience aside, she’s actually a pretty good diplomat. She’s done a good job during her term as governor negotiating between the hard-line tea party and establishment republicans to get things done. E.g. getting the flag down.
I completely disagree with her on economic policy, but she’s going to be much better in this position than, say, John Bolton.
We’ll survive McMaster. And this gives us SC Dems a head start on campaigning against him in 2018, assuming we can find someone willing to run for governor.
Plus we won a recent battle:
S. Carolina agency suspends changes to abortion regulations
I think you’ve nailed it, Booman. Your analysis seems impeccable.
So perhaps Trump is seeing this as only a short term appointment?
IOW — a win-win for Trump? As much as I’d prefer to keep laughing at the guy, the political astuteness of this pick, scares me.
Shades of the Sessions pick inre: no risk of losing a safely-red seat.
Except as AG, Sessions could create some real problems for the administration. Enough people there to play whistleblower when he pulls some shady or illegal stuff.
Wonder if it will ever be helpful for Trump to have Sessions perp walk a few bankers for account control fraud, hmmm?
So far it seems like Trump enjoys doing that kind of dirty work himself. Wouldn’t let Sessions hog the limelight on an indictment that garners public applause; Trump wants the applause for himself. Even if that’s not the way Justice has ever operated.
Don’t know that he’s vindictive like Nixon. Putting people that he’s going to get later on a secret list. He’s been taking out/down his opponents as they appear and as he gains the upper hand. He didn’t refrain from a duel with Megyn Kelly at a time when he needed Fox on his side. But he did light into the MSM folks that came to kiss his ring this week. Although he so inarticulate that he didn’t lay out a rational case for why he has a beef with them.
Stay tuned is all I can say.
The public would love it.
Meanwhile: The Hill – Mark Cuban quietly meets with Bannon
The only honorable thing to do for someone who says something like this is to give away every penny. Otherwise, he looks like another wealthy sod that talks big but in reality is another wimpl
Ha! ha! reminds me of the scene in “I, Claudius” shortly after Caligula’s metamorphosis when some sycophant Senator tells Caligula “I prayed to Jove to take me instead of you!” “Caligula tells him he’s excused and may leave because “You want to keep your bargain with Jove don’t you? He might get mad and take me after all.”
Cuban a fraud? I’m shocked, shocked, … !!
It will be such a relief to have the foaming at the mouth Samantha Powers no longer representing us at the UN. And replacing her with another woman is a good idea, to avoid reinforcing the idea that Trump is all about old white men.
I would have preferred someone with some foreign policy experience to have been appointed to this post, but appointing someone without any does send the message that Trump wants to send I guess that the UN is not to be taken too seriously.
And the UN is not taken seriously by the establishment itself. A UN commission found that the confinement of Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London is illegal, but the UK ignored that finding.
Is experience an asset these day for this position?
What experience did GHWB have?
Have there been any breaks in the chain from Jeane Kirkpatrick to Samantha Power? (Support for authoritarian regimes around the world as long as they go along with the USG, and otherwise, lots of bombs and the means to deliver them to topple the regime.)
Maybe before Haley is confirmed someone could ask her what targets she has in mind for US bombs and regime change.
As Governor, Haley got credit for negotiating the legislation that removed the Confederate flag (at least for now) from the State House grounds. No simple feat.
As a a daughter of Sikh immigrants from India, Haley likely knows more of the world than most Republican politicians.
No doubt she won office because she was able to pay her dues in her rise to the governor’s office. She knows how to be a team player. No matter what she said about Trump during the campaign, she will be obligated to sell Trump’s America to the world and deliver important intelligence to Trump about the world’s image of Trump and America. She is likely not to be a flatterer of Trump. He might can take that from women easier than from men.
And Trump likes to surround himself with attractive younger women.
Trump promises to be different, but the Republican foreign policy establishment has been hitting the upbeats of the drive to regime change.
Trumps team seems aligned with authoritarian regimes or potential authoritarian factions around the world already. Farage is only the closest. The international white religious nationalist oligarch movement.
Haley is reported to be strongly pro-Israel and anti-BDS. Palestinian independence has slowly been gaining ground among the Global South delegates, and Russia and China likely are at least ambivalent about their responses to Israeli confiscation of Palestinian land.
Haley will be empowered to defend Israel’s interests with the US veto. She will also have an interesting relationship to the Indian delegation from the Modi administration because of her Sikh heritage.
Yes, a way of placating Lindsay Graham on other issues and kissing the Republican establishment ring, having Sister Souljah’d Bannon’s base with a statement.
Good analysis about McMaster, BooMan. I really don’t see why McMaster would need a leg up on the 2018 election unless there are potential primary candidates from the other factions of the Republican Party. Keep in mind that McMaster is the same age as Hillary Clinton. He rode the party establishment as it rose with the help of Strom Thurmond.
Haley is as stupid as Governor Whitman was and probably more so.
Republican lawmakers hate the UN and under both of the Bush presidents, it was not a cabinet post. Fox News hates the UN and so do most voting Republicans.
She won’t last a year before she figures out what Booman already knows.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.