(CNN)President Joe Biden has been in office for just over a year, but former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has seen enough: She wants him to resign.
Analysis by Chris Cillizza, CNN Editor-at-large
“Honestly, for the good of our country, if Biden loved our country, he would step down and take [Vice President] Kamala [Harris] with him,” Haley told conservative pundit Guy Benson on Thursday. “Because the foreign policy situation is beyond dangerous at this point.”
Haley, who served as the UN ambassador during the Trump administration, has every right to raise questions about how Biden has handled foreign policy — in particular the Russian buildup of troops on Ukraine’s eastern border.
But it’s a little more than rich — and over the line — for Haley to suggest that Biden’s policies are so bad that they are badly endangering Americans, and that the only thing he can do is step down. It’s particularly galling when you consider how the man Haley served under handled foreign policy.
Remember that Donald Trump told North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — via tweet! — that “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!
“And that during a joint news conference with Vladimir Putin, Trump sided with the Russian leader over his own intelligence services when it came to Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
So, yeah. Last time I checked, Haley didn’t call on Trump to resign “for the good of the country” when either of those things happened.
What’s going on here is simple: Haley wants to run for president — if not in 2024, then at some point in the not-too-distant future. (She has already said she will not run if Trump seeks the office again.
In order to best position herself for that bid, Haley is aggressively courting the Trumpists who compose much of the Republican base at the moment. And the best way to do that is to say outlandish stuff — like that Biden, if he loved the country, should step aside. The more outlandish, the better.
