Nikki Haley says she will vote for Trump, ending months of silence

WASHINGTON

Ex-US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley announced Wednesday that she will vote for her former boss, Donald Trump, in November’s presidential election, ending her long-running silence on whether she would endorse the presumptive Republican nominee.

Haley acknowledged her continued disputes with the former president but said that given the choice between him and incumbent President Joe Biden, she would lend her vote to Trump.

"I put my priorities on a president who's going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account, who would secure the border, no more excuses, a president who would support capitalism and freedom, a president who understands we need less debt, not more debt. Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I have made that clear many, many times," she said during her first public remarks.

"But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump. Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech. Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they're just going to be with him. And I genuinely hope he does that," she said at the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank.

Haley ended her campaign on March 6 but declined for over two months to endorse Trump, even after he became the Republican presumptive nominee ahead of July's Republican National Convention.

Haley and Trump shared no shortage of acrimony during the Republican primary, with the ex-president repeatedly launching into derogatory comments about her, including mocking her birth name and calling her a "birdbrain."