2024 Presidential Hopeful Nikki Haley to Launch New Book in Fall to Inspire Next Generation of Female Leaders
- The title of the book, “If You Want Something Done,” is based on a quote by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and former South Carolina governor is gearing up to launch her third book this fall. The book, “If You Want Something Done,” is aimed at inspiring the next generation of female leaders. The title is based on a quote by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: “If you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman.”
The book is scheduled to be out on Oct. 4. It “celebrates women who dared to be bold — from household names like Thatcher and Israel’s former Prime Minister Golda Meir to Jeane Kirkpatrick, the first female United States Ambassador to the United Nations, human rights activist Cindy Warmbier, education advocate Virginia Walden Ford, and more,” according to the book’s promotional material on the publisher’s website. “Haley offers inspiring examples of a range of women who worked against obstacles and opposition to get things done — including Haley herself,” the website says. “That journey wasn’t an easy one.”
A note from the publisher adds: “As a brown girl growing up in Bamberg, South Carolina, no one would have predicted she would become the first minority female governor in America, the first female and the first minority governor of South Carolina, or the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.”
This is Haley’s third book. In 2019, she wrote “With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace,” which offers “a first-hand perspective on major national and international matters, as well as a behind-the-scenes account of her tenure in the Trump administration.” Before that in 2012, she authored “Can’t Is Not an Option: My American Story,” an inspirational memoir of family, hope, and the power of the American Dream.
Haley, who is also weighing a 2024 presidential bid, has been critical of the Biden administration especially after Russia invaded Ukraine. Earlier this month on NBC’s Meet the Press she condemned the White House for trying to reach Moscow through Beijing.“You never negotiate, you never deal with your enemies,” the South Carolina Republican told NBC News’s Chuck Todd. “You can’t trust them. And that’s why I was mortified that Biden went so far as asking China for help with Russia. I mean, you never ask an enemy for help with another enemy.”
Haley said she would not seek her party’s nomination for president if Trump opts to run in 2024. “That’s something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point, if that decision is something that has to be made.”
Once considered a close Trump ally, she has been distancing herself from her former boss since the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Earlier this month, she was conspicuous by her absence during his rally in South Carolina, “in part to attack the state’s GOP Representatives Tom Rice and Nancy Mace, and issue support for their opponents,” Newsweek reported. According to the report, the rally marked “a notable divide within the GOP, since Haley moved to endorse Mace early last month.” Newsweek noted that Haley’s endorsement of Mace “has largely been viewed as yet another example of a fraction within the GOP seeking to move itself away from Trump’s influence.”
However, last April, while answering a question from The Associated Press at the South Carolina State University, Haley said she would not seek her party’s nomination for president if Trump opts to run in 2024. “That’s something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point, if that decision is something that has to be made.” These comments by Haley, considered one of the most high-profile potential 2024 contenders, once again confirmed the hold Trump has on the Republican Party.
CNN noted at the time that “Haley has often attempted to walk a fine line between allying herself with Trump — who remains a hugely popular figure within the party — while distancing herself enough to appeal to his Republican and moderate critics.”
But a month after the Jan. 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill, she admitted to Politico’s Tim Alberta that Trump “let us down.” In an extended and detailed interview with Tim Alberta, published on Feb. 12, she said Trump “went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”
Politico reported earlier that since she joined the Trump administration as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, “Haley had navigated the Trump era with a singular shrewdness, messaging and maneuvering in ways that kept her in solid standing both with the GOP donor class as well as with the president and his base. She maintained a direct line to Trump, keeping private her candid criticisms of him, while publicly striking an air of detached deference.”
She was one of the few members of the Trump administration who left on good terms with her boss, unlike her other colleagues, many of whom engaged in public spats. When she resigned in 2018, the New York Times called her “that rarest of Trump appointees: one who can exit the administration with her dignity largely intact.”