Nikki Haley launches run for US president, challenging Donald Trump
- A ‘proud daughter of Indian immigrants’, she is not black, not white, but ‘different’, the Republican politician says in her announcement video
- Haley vowed to be tough with America’s rivals, saying that ‘when you kick back’ at bullies, it ‘hurts them more if you’re wearing heels’
Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced on Tuesday she is running for president, becoming the first high-profile candidate to challenge Donald Trump – her one-time boss – for the Republican nomination.
Casting herself as a younger, fresher alternative to the 76-year-old Trump, Haley had been hinting at a possible run for weeks and teasing a “big announcement” on February 15. In the end, the 51-year-old declared her candidacy a day early, on Valentine’s Day.
“I’m Nikki Haley and I’m running for president,” the former governor of South Carolina and the child of Indian immigrants said in a video statement.
“It’s time for a new generation of leadership – to rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose,” she said in the video shot in Bamberg, the South Carolina town of her birth.
Haley is positioning herself as a changemaker who can reinvigorate a party and country she says have lost their way in recent years, and she played up her personal background as part of her appeal to unite a nation strained by racial tensions.
