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...over six months ago, she said, you know, maybe at the end of the year, at the end of a two-year period, but the end of the year, I want to take a little time off. I want to take a little break. She's been a very successful, you know, governor of South Carolina.
The most extraordinary thing about Ambassador Haley's resignation was that it was so smooth. Trump and Haley were there in the Oval Office acting as best friends, as if they were sharing an afternoon tea. And they made an enormous show of their bonhomie, when actually, sometimes the two have diverged. But throughout her tenure in her role, Ambassador Haley has tried very hard to say that she had a direct line to Donald Trump. They understood each other very well. Trump said on Tuesday that she's someone who really gets it, and she and the bosses described their relationship as perfect.
It's not looking very perfect today that she's stepping down suddenly before - long before - her two years are up, but they're certainly trying to make a good show of it. Now, that hasn't really done much to answer any of the big questions, which are - is she standing, looking at a presidential run? She said no, absolutely not in 2020, and that she'll be campaigning for Mr Trump. But it's clear that she has political ambitions. She didn't mention 2024. She didn't rule out a political career in the future.
And I'm told that, in fact, the timing of her resignation couldn't really be much worse for Trump. He's just a month off from the midterms, and he's looking at potentially losing a great deal of seats in the House. He's under pressure in the Senate. She could, I'm told, have waited. The fact that she hasn't waited is really fascinating, in terms of her political aspirations.
Another remarkable feature of Tuesday's Oval Office meeting was that Ambassador Haley went out of her way to praise Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, saying he was a hidden genius and that she wished if only the public could know quite how much he does behind the scenes on foreign policy. She didn't thank her own official boss, Pompeo, or Bolton, but Jared Kushner she reserved special praise for and said that he'd done a huge amount - not only on the trade deal that was recently agreed with Mexico and Canada, but also on his efforts to strive for peace in the Middle East. And, of course, we know that Jared Kushner has played a so-called back door role when it comes to Russia, China, and North Korea, so it was an unusual thing to flag.
