2019-11-26
A memoir suggesting that if there are problems within the Trump administration, the problem is not Trump.
As a tea party candidate who became governor of South Carolina, Haley (Can't Is Not an Option: My American Story, 2012) first established herself as a political star on the rise—young, female, and minority, all areas where the Republican Party had been perceived as weakest. With the election of Trump, she was recruited to become the United Nations ambassador, though her governorship hadn't involved any foreign diplomacy, nor did her straight-shooting demeanor as a self-described "badass" suggest a diplomatic personality, nor had she supported Trump during the primary campaign. Thus, the most remarkable part of this memoir, in contrast to the onslaught of Trump exposés, is her account of how well she worked with the president, how they established a relationship based on mutual respect and trust, how she was able to disagree with him without drawing his ire, and how she was able to leave her U.N. post on good terms. If others had problems with this president, she suggests it was their fault. Her memoir generated plenty of pre-publication publicity for its accounts of her skirmishes with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and her allegation that he and John Kelly had attempted to enlist her in a conspiracy to circumvent the president's policies. "Whether they sincerely believed they were doing the right thing or just pushing their personal agendas, these people were dangerous," writes Haley. By contrast, you always knew where you stood with the president, or at least she felt she did. Because of their "open and honest communication," she writes, "in an administration in which so many people's negative relationship with the president was their undoing, my relationship with President Trump was a positive. Our styles were different, but we were both fundamentally disrupters of the status quo. And we were both action-oriented."
An average political memoir containing strong speculation that her next action will be a bid for the White House.
