WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today met with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, President-elect Trump’s nominee for the next United States Ambassador to the United Nations.
Excerpts from Senator Coons’ remarks following his meeting with Governor Nikki Haley:
“My concern is that our adversaries in the United Nations are represented by very seasoned, very capable, very sharp-edged diplomats, and this is not the Model U.N. This is the real U.N., in the same way that being President is not a reality T.V. show. This is real life. And so I'm hoping for some clear and strong answers tomorrow to a number of questions I asked today.”
“It is a huge portfolio. To be Ambassador to the U.N. means literally to have to understand the interests and priorities of concerns of over one hundred and ninety nations...I understand she would have a steep learning curve, but I think the U.N. is a place where we can't afford to have an Ambassador who is learning on the job.”
“One thing Governor Haley said that I found encouraging was that she'd been assured by the President-elect that the U.N. Ambassador would be a Cabinet-level official who would participate in National Security Council deliberations. That's not always been the case, and I do think that strengthens her role in the foreign policy-national security team in the Trump Administration should she be confirmed.”
“She sees value in the U.N.'s important and difficult work in peacekeeping and in refugees. She sees NATO as a critical alliance, and she does not trust Vladimir Putin and thinks that we should be suspicious of and push back on Russian aggression and hold them accountable for their actions in Crimea and Syria. I pointed out to her that those statements are sharply in contrast to what the President-elect has said and continues to say. She explained how she hopes that the foreign policy and national security team will be able to help shape and inform the President-elect’s views...and I found that very encouraging.
“I would far rather have a strong-willed, capable elected leader with experience at the state level who says those things than someone who has been a diplomat for thirty years and says ‘oh, I'll do whatever Donald Trump says.’”
“I admire her leadership as Governor of South Carolina during the extremely difficult massacre, in which Dylan Roof murdered a whole number of innocent South Carolinians. And her leadership in the weeks and months that followed in removing the Confederate flag from the South Carolina state capital and bringing together very disparate voices and views from among South Carolinians. I am hopeful that we will have a constructive confirmation hearing tomorrow.”