South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will give the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, but judging from excerpts released earlier in the evening, she will also jab the GOP’s own Donald Trump.
Haley will take clear aim at the GOP primary front-runner, discussing her family’s immigrant experience while warning against rhetoric that would threaten “the dream that is America.”
“During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices,” Haley is expected to say. “We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.”
Haley doesn’t mention Trump by name, but the implication is clear. The billionaire, who has led the Republican race in most national polls for months, said after the Paris terror attacks he would consider creating a national database of American Muslims and later called for a temporary halt of Muslims entering the U.S.
Speaking to reporters in Columbia a day after Trump proposed the ban, Haley dismissed it as “unconstitutional” and “an embarrassment” to the GOP.
“It defies everything that this country was based on,” she said. “It’s just wrong.”
Haley, 43, is the daughter of immigrants and the first Indian-American woman to serve as governor of a state below the Mason-Dixon line.
First elected in 2010, Haley’s performance in South Carolina has earned her fans across the country — and on Capitol Hill.
“If you want to hear an inclusive leader who’s visionary, who’s got a path for the future, who’s brought people together, who’s unified, it’s Nikki Haley,” Paul Ryan, the popular Republican House speaker, told CNN’s Jake Tapper Monday on “The Lead.”
Her status as a rising star and steely politician was solidified during a trying summer, as the young governor managed her state’s response to the church massacre in Charleston, including the removal of the Confederate flag from state grounds.