Taking over where Samantha Power left off, Nikki Haley, the new UN Ambassador under the Trump White House blasted Russia in her first NBC interview as the top US diplomat to the United Nations.
Nikki Haley told Matt Lauer on Wednesday that the threat of Russia should not be taken lightly…
“Take it seriously. We cannot trust Russia. We should never trust Russia.”
Long gone are the days when diplomats acted with diplomacy and respect towards other nation states.
The UN Ambassador was responding to a question from NBC’s Matt Lauer, hours after the Justice Department charged Russian intelligence officers for hacking 500 million Yahoo accounts in 2014…a claim that was immediately denied by Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov saying…
“We have repeatedly stated that there can be absolutely no question of any official involvement of any Russian agency, including the FSB, in any unlawful actions in cyberspace.”
“We learned about this situation from the media, as far as we know, we did not receive any information from official channels, so unfortunately we do not have the details. Russia has always expressed interest…in cooperation in the field of countering cybercrime and ensuring cybersecurity, we believe that this is one of the priorities in our time.”
Haley’s attitude towards Russia diverges from President Donald Trump, who has suggested that the United States and Russia might have friendlier relations under his watch.
Lauer continued to press Haley to support tougher actions towards Russia for their imaginary “US election hack”, suggesting conflict with Russia should be on the table.
Luckily Haley showed a little restraint, and did not take Lauer’s war monger bait, preferring to fall back to a general verbal “villainization” of Russia and Putin.
The Duran readers: What do you think?
Haley also defended Trump’s orders banning travel from certain majority-Muslim nations, saying his executive actions are not the Muslim ban he proposed during his campaign — and that she vocally opposed as governor of South Carolina.
Enforcement of Trump’s revised travel order, issued by the president last week, was set to begin Thursday. But a federal judge in Hawaii blocked the new ban Wednesday evening, after Haley’s interview was taped and mere hours before it was to go into effect.
“It’s not a Muslim ban. I will never support a Muslim ban. I don’t think we should ever ban anyone based on their religion. That is un-American. It is not good,” Haley said prior to a judge’s ruling Wednesday. “What I can tell you is, as governor of South Carolina, I knew the fears and the problems that we had with people coming into the country that we could not vet properly.”
The new executive order, now on hold nationwide, is a more limited version of the first travel ban, which prohibited residents and refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. and was halted by several court orders.
Haley, speaking prior to the federal judge’s ruling, disputed the idea that Trump’s executive orders had anything to do with religion.
“He’s saying let’s temporarily pause, and you prove to me that the vetting is okay, that I can trust these people coming through for the American people. Every American citizen should appreciate the fact that we’ve gotten so far away from vetting that we need to get back into it,” she said. “The president saying, ‘Show me how you’re gonna vet.'”
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