Nikki Haley, a former US Ambassador to the UN and Republican presidential primary challenger, spoke at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Tuesday night, where she stressed the importance of unity and endorsed former President Donald Trump.
“President Trump asked me to speak to this convention in the name of unity,” she said to cheers from the crowd, according to CNN.
Haley called it a “gracious invitation” and said she was happy to accept. She then stressed, “Donald Trump has my strong endorsement, period.”
Haley ran against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, but dropped out of the race after multiple primary losses to Trump, including in her own state of South Carolina.
She later said she would be voting for Trump but stopped short of fully endorsing him until Tuesday night.
Haley was invited to the convention just days ago. Last week, Haley spokesperson Chaney Denton told CNN that she was not invited and that she was “fine with that.”
In her remarks on Tuesday night, Halley said that the country will be “badly worse off” with four more years of the Biden administration. She also argued that Democrats have moved too far to the left. “For the sake of our nation, we have to go with Donald Trump,” she said.
Haley acknowledged that not all Americans agree with Trump all of the time. She said in her remarks that she was speaking directly to those voters.
“My message to them is simple. You don’t have to agree with Trump 100% of the time to vote for him. Take it from me, I haven’t always agreed with President Trump, but we agree more often than we disagree,” she said.