President Obama’s chief of staff praised South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s response to his boss’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, calling her speech “admirable” for its pushback against the anti-immigrant rhetoric of Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
“I have a lot of admiration for the governor,” Denis McDonough told reporters at a Washington, D.C. breakfast on Wednesday. “I think some of the things that she’s done over the course of the last year were remarkable.”
Haley took an untraditional tack in her response to President Obama’s speech before Congress on Tuesday night by criticizing her own party as much as the president himself. She apportioned partial blame for a divided country to members of the GOP, unleashed a thinly-veiled attack on Trump’s “irresponsible talk,” said that the “fabric of America was made by immigrants,” and urged her fellow Republicans to resist “the siren call of the angriest voices.”
McDonough said he wasn’t surprised by many of the themes in Haley’s speech. “I’ve been impressed with the governor’s work,” he said, pointing to her “powerful” reaction to last year’s Charleston shootings and the controversy over the Confederate flag that erupted in their aftermath.
“By no means am I trying to endorse everything she’s doing,” he added, saying the White House still strongly disagrees with her decision not to expand Medicaid under Obamacare. “But I do think that a lot of this, including parts of her speech last night, were admirable.”
#share#Haley’s name has been floated as a possible vice presidential pick, with several commentators speculating that her State of the Union response was an audition of sorts. On Wednesday morning, the South Carolina governor said she would be willing to “sit down and talk” with the eventual Republican nominee about accepting the number two post.
If that nominee is Donald Trump, Haley will likely be disappointed. Though the real-estate mogul has yet to respond to Haley’s criticism, her speech earned scorn from his backers in the right-wing media. Radio host Laura Ingraham tweeted afterward that it was, “Too bad @NikkiHaley missed her oppty to stand w/ working ppl who want borders enforced, American workers put first, govt shrunk.” Ann Coulter was even more blunt. “Trump should deport Nikki Haley,” she wrote.
— Brendan Bordelon is a political reporter for National Review.