Nikki Haley

Nikki: Someone was arrested and put in prison because he paid an informant to have me killed. IRGC, the Iranian regime, paid a Pakistani businessman to do it.

Daniel: Now let's make some news. Why did you leave in 2018?

Nikki: It actually wasn't about Trump that I left. It was more about John Bolton.

Daniel: What are the conditions under which you would run for president in 2028?

Nikki: I'm not running for president in 2028.

Daniel: What about 2032?

Nikki: I'll never say never.

Daniel: Nikki Haley, thank you for being here on Build or Break.

Nikki: It's so good to be with you.

Daniel: Nikki, I told you, I wrote you in the elections where you run for president, so you know that I'm a very big fan, but I am going to subject you to the Mexican Inquisition today.

Nikki: I would be offended if you didn't.

Daniel: Right. I want to actually start with something crazy. I've known you for many years. I remember when you first came to the KIND offices. I was in awe of you when you were United Nations ambassador because of the way the deft way you were handling foreign policy. But what I like about Build or Break is I learned so much. And one of the things that I found fascinating about your upbringing is when you were five years old. Do you know what I'm thinking about or no?

Nikki: Yes. So in that small southern town in Bamberg, 2,500 people, two stoplights, there's not a lot to do, but the one thing they did every year was they had the Little Miss Bamberg pageant and all the moms put their girls in it. And one of our neighbors told my mom, she said, "You should put your girls in it." So my mom decided to put us in that pageant and we were put in, my sister's four years older, she was in it as well. And midway through the pageant, the judges pulled my mom aside and said, "We need to disqualify your girls." And my mom said, "Why?" And she said, "Because we have a Black queen and we have a white queen and each side would be upset if they were in it." And she said, "Well, is there nothing you can do?" And she said, "No, I'm sorry." She said, "But we'll give them a concession." And so they gave me a beach ball and my mom just said, "Can Nikki at least do her talent?" And they agreed to it. And my talent was, "This land is your land, this land is my land." I mean, it was a song I sang, so I sang it, but I swore off pageants after that. It was brutal. But that was the time back then that just -

Daniel: When you said this land is your land, it made me emotional. I hadn't captured that part of the story. I didn't know that. That's so ironic and so crazy. And in some ways I think it defines who you are, that you said no, because you're not... I like to talk because I'm very impressed with you, first this, first that, but you're not an identitarian person. You are just Nikki Haley. And you almost said that's not going to happen again to other Americans. I'm going to build together.

Nikki: I was on the playground. I was in second grade. I had skipped a grade, and so it was a new group that I was trying to be friends with. And every recess we would go out and play kickball. And so we went out after lunch going to play kickball, and all of a sudden I looked and I saw everybody on the other side of me and I said, "Are we going to play kickball?" And they said, "We are, but are you?" And they said, "You have to pick a team." There was a Black team and there was a white team.

Daniel: Wow.

Nikki: I didn't know exactly how to deal with that. I remember going and grabbing the ball and running and saying, "I'm both." It was just one of those things, but it was

Daniel: So - And also it was not, "I'm neither." It was, "I'm both." That says so much about you. When I arrived into San Antonio, Texas in my public high school, Robert Lee High School, nonetheless, also the Black kids would sit here, the white kids would sit here, and they wouldn't talk to each other. One day would sit with the Black kids, one with the Hispanics, one with the whites, one with the jocks, one with the drama kids. And this young woman, Amber Alonzo, who had a crush on, she was a punk rocker. She's like, "Daniel, you need to define yourself. You have to choose one group or the other." I'm like, "I never chose."

Nikki: And it was constantly in front of us. Do you remember the standardized tests? They would have black, white, and other, and I was always an other. It was one of those things that you were constantly reminded you were different. We were the only Indian family in that small town, so we felt it. I mean, my father wore a turban, my mother wore a sari, so we stood out.

Daniel: So you're not like, because Nikki Haley, you feel the quintessential American, your accent is not like my accent. You feel like very South Carolinan, but as a kid, were you wearing saris also?

Nikki: No, I wasn't. But because we were the only Indian family and because my parents looked the way they did, they didn't know who we were, what we were, why we were there. I would get teased on the playground and bullied. I remember when I would come home, my mom was very stern with me and she'd say, "Your job is not to show them how you're different. Your job is to show them how you're similar." And so it's amazing how that lesson on the playground played throughout my life, whether it was in business, whether it was when I was governor, whether it was ambassador, or you go on to be president. I'm so grateful for that lesson from the playground because what I've found is whenever you have a challenge, if you first acknowledge with the person who's challenging you the things you have in common, people put their guard down and then you can actually have a conversation. So this actually, if you think of the United Nations, when I had to go and debate or deal, we were trying to pass the largest set of sanctions against a country in a generation with North Korea. And the only way I could get that done was with China and China didn't want to move on that. And what I knew was China didn't want war on the peninsula and China didn't want regime change with North Korea because all the North Koreans would want to go into China. And so before we even started the negotiations, I just said, "Let's make one thing clear." I said, "I want to make sure that we prevent more and we do whatever it takes to prevent war. And you should know that this administration has no interest in regime change with Kim Jong-un. We just want to make sure that the nuclear activity stops." And then all of a sudden you could see them relax a little bit. So I've learned that whether it's business or anything else, you have to think the way your opponent thinks. You have to disarm them. And the only way you do that is if you get inside what they're thinking, what they want and what their goals are, and then you can work through it.

Daniel: So let me ask you a tricky question because I was thinking about this a lot. Part of why you were so good at the United Nations is because you really developed those personal bonds, relationships, understood them. It's not about us versus them. It's I was listening and then trying to advance America's interests. President Trump thinks that his relationship with Putin, his relationship with Xi is making him develop such deep bonds that he gets to accomplish what he wants. A lot of people think that they take advantage of him thinking that they're best friends and whether it's Ukraine or other issues, that it doesn't work. How do you as a leader figure out when you are advancing the interest, when they're playing you and how do you think through that?

Nikki: So it's different in business than it is in foreign policy. When you are in business, you want to build relationships, you want to have those. That's considered an asset. That's considered something you'll use down the road. When you're dealing with foreign policy, it's important to know who it is you're interacting with. There was never any issue with me knowing that Russia was not our friend. There was never any issue with me knowing that China wanted to dominate the world and we were standing in their way. There was never any issue with me understanding that North Korea was determined to have their way with South Korea. There was never an issue with me knowing that Iran wanted to see Israel and the US eliminated. Those were very clear to me. Now, I still had to work with multiple countries, and I always tell people when I went to the United Nations, every day it felt like I was putting on body armor because I knew there'd be a fight. I just didn't know what country we were fighting that day. The differences and the reason that I was able to get as much done there and that I was respected there was it wasn't about them liking me. That was not my goal. What I wanted is for them to respect America. And so the way I got them to respect America is I always told them the truth, even if they didn't want to hear it. It was hard truths. They knew if they came to me, they were going to get the truth. They were going to get my intentions. They were going to get where America stood, what America was for, what America wasn't. And if they didn't do what we wanted, they knew I'd call them out on it because I proved it. And if they did do what we wanted, I was going to embrace them and call them to be the ally that they were. And so it's different than relationships. I think you have to be very clear-eyed when you're dealing with adversaries that you know what they're up to. They need to know that you know what they're up to, and also they need to know not to push you. With allies, you have to be a truth teller too, because what I saw at the United Nations, everybody wanted the US to do everything. Countries would say, "We want to get this done. It'd be a great idea." And they were like, "We need you to do it." And I would always say, "You do it. We'll support you in it. We're not leading on that. You want to embolden your allies. You want to lift them up. Let them do the work. We'll support it." And when it comes to your enemies, they pay attention to that.

Daniel: So going back and digesting, I do remember when you were ambassador to United Nations, everybody was in awe. The accomplishments that you had were off the charts from both sides, Democrats and Republicans were in awe of what you were accomplishing. Did you just learn on the job? Am I right you jumped from governor to United Nations ambassador. How did you develop and ramp up to get that knowledge and where did that backbone come from?

Nikki: I would love to say that I had this history of foreign policy and all that. I didn't. I knew how to lead a state. I knew domestic policy. I did not know foreign policy, but I knew that I loved America, was determined to defend her, and I had to learn as much as I could as fast as I could. And the way that I did that was I set myself up for success. When President Trump called me and asked me to do the job -

Daniel: He called you out of the blue?

Nikki: So I got a call from his chief of staff, Reince Priebus. I was about to be the head of the Republican Governors Association at the time, and he called me and he said, "Nikki, the president wants you to come see him in New York." And I said, "Okay, what's this about?" And he said, "Well, he wants to talk to you about Secretary of State." And I said, "Reince, I'm a governor. I can't be Secretary of State." And he said, "Well, he wants to see you, so you just need to come up here." So I went up to New York and I had endorsed Marco Rubio in that race, but Trump and I had been friends. I had known him. He had supported me in my first run for governor. And so when I saw him, he said, "Well, I guess your guy didn't win." And that was his dig. I talked to him and I said, "Look, I'm not your person. You don't need someone with a learning curve. You need someone who can get to work right away, but I will do what I can to help you." Fast-forward a couple of days, Reince called and he said, "Don't say anything, just listen. US Ambassador to the United Nations." I said, "Reince, I don't even know what the United Nations does. I just know everybody hates it." And he said, "Well, the president's going to call you on Monday. You need to be ready with an answer." And so Michael and I kind of looked it up and looked at all of what it was going to be. And then when the president called on Monday, he said, "All right, Nick, are you going to do this?" And I said, "Well, it'd have to be on three conditions." And he said, "What?" And I said, "Number one, I don't want to work for anyone. I've been a governor. I want to work directly with you, so I'd need to be a cabinet member." He said, "Done. What else?" I said, "Well, I'm a policy girl, so I'd want to be in the room when decisions are made, so I want to be on your National Security Council." He said, "Done." And I said, "Well, I'm not going to be a wallflower or a talking head. I need to be able to do what I think. And I will tell you, Daniel, if you're going to do something, be great at it or don't do it." And I studied and studied and studied, and I have no problem being humble about it. If we were going to go talk about something in the Security Council or a certain country, I'd have all the experts come with a map, go through everything, and I read all the time. I studied, I asked questions, I surrounded myself with smart people, and then I followed my gut. Then it was just fighting for what I believed in, because what I knew is whatever was in the best interest of the United States, I was going to fight for that.

Daniel: Do you remember how you and I met or no?

Nikki: I think it was the beginning of the Abraham Accords.

Daniel: What I remember is observing from afar with fascination because President Trump, whatever you like about his following policy or not, he was not the best human manager, at least to my eyes. He kept denigrating every single cabinet member and would mistreat people and would put them down and make them look like fools. And just as a person that had an organization, I found that very unhealthy. And the only person he didn't do that to was you for during your reign, he eventually got to you when you criticize him after January 6th and run for whatever, and we'll talk about that a little bit. I was fascinated that every single one of his cabinet members, he really treated them badly and he treated you as an equal. And I was in awe. I didn't understand how that happened.

Nikki: I think first it was me knowing my role. So as governor, when I appointed my cabinet members, I didn't appoint people who voted for me or who donated. I put the best person in the job that I knew could solve the problems. When I appointed them, I said, "I want you to do a few things. One, I want you to serve the people. Two, I want you to be creative. And three, if you see me doing something wrong, say it." And so I took the same things that I said to my cabinet and I took that responsibility to President Trump. So if he was doing something, I would support, I would rally, I'd fight for it. I'd give it everything I had. If there was something I disagreed with him in or I thought he was getting ready to make a mistake, I would call him or meet with him and say, "You can't do this, but instead you could do X, Y, or Z." I always gave him options. And I think that's what you have to remember is know your role, know your place. He was the president. He needed to make a decision. So instead of saying, "Oh, this decision's bad or good," give options on what would make it better. But it's your job to be a truth teller. Tell them everything good and bad. And I think that he knew, one, I gave him good solutions. Two, I never embarrassed him. And I also made sure that I think he knew he could trust me because I wasn't going to let him fall.

Daniel: In front of the cameras, you were extraordinarily loyal. You didn't criticize him publicly. You and I had this debate multiple times. You were very, very forceful and respectful about saying, "I have my style and my style is to give people feedback behind the scenes. I'm not here to deliberate in front of the cameras." And in some ways I really respect that and it kind of worked. At some point, that doesn't work because you need loyalty, but at some point, President Trump, in his behavior on January 6th, those things that I think a lot of us found problematic. And at some point you said, look, you were actually probably in the worst place because you criticized it, but not the way the Democrats wanted to criticize it, but more than the Republicans wanted to criticize it. And just in your own way, you said, "I don't approve of this," and everybody hated you as a result. And so what's the right way to navigate those issues?

Nikki: Well, I think when you work for someone, I think it's important to respect that they're the decision maker. And so your job is to be a truth teller and tell them things behind closed doors. If it starts to go in a direction that you don't like, you leave. I left.

Daniel: Is that why you left in 2018? Because it was never on the record. So now let's make some news. Why did you leave in 2018?

Nikki: It actually wasn't about Trump that I left. It was more about John Bolton and seeing what was happening as national security advisor. He didn't want to have meetings. He only wanted to handle things quietly.

Daniel: For real? That's not too convenient because now nobody loves that guy.

Nikki: I said this in my book. If you look at with all due respect, I wrote about it. What I saw was at his comment, I went to the president and I said, "We're not having National Security Council meetings. These meetings are hugely important when decisions are being made because every cabinet agency has to respond and has requirements." But John Bolton's answer was, "What? You don't have enough meetings?" I mean, these are things like getting out of the Iran deal. These are things like what's happening with Ukraine at the time. These are massive issues that you don't need to have sitting in the Oval with a notepad and having that one-on-one. You need to know how it's going to affect commerce, how it's going to affect agricultural.

Daniel: You felt that maybe President Trump was doing things you didn't like and you didn't want to criticize him, so you felt it was time for you to move?

Nikki: I felt like I could see how self-absorbed John Bolton was getting, and I could see that it was going to be all about his foreign policy. And I could see the direction that he was going one way, Pompeo was going the other way. I was a cabinet member, and so the reason I wanted to be a cabinet member was I didn't have to respond to either one of them.

Daniel: And at that time, you had a very incredible... I mean, President Trump, I don't know how to describe it. He was in awe of you. There was one situation where somehow he challenged you and you stood up very elegantly, not in a mean way, but I seem to recall, do you remember the moment?

Nikki: It actually wasn't him. It was President Trump had decided to put sanctions on Russia. We had had two National Security Council meetings back to back on that, and he decided to go forward. And I met with him on the Friday before in DC. He was still going forward, and they had asked me to do Sunday shows. And so I recorded it on Saturday, and I made the comment, President Trump would be warranted in putting sanctions on Russia if he chooses to. Something along the lines of that.

Daniel: Consistent with what he had decided.

Nikki: Yes. And so I got a call from Steve Mnuchin on Sunday, and Steve and I got along very well, and he said, "We've got a little bit of a problem. Trump's decided not to do the sanctions on Russia, and the press is calling." And I said, "Well, that's not a problem. Just tell them that he either changed his mind or he's going to pause and do it later. Just tell the truth." And he said, "We're going to put out a statement. Everything will be fine." So they put out a statement and it didn't answer the question. So I called a couple of them. Secretary of State, National Security Advisor called and I said, "Look, I've done this long enough to know that if you don't answer the questions of journalists, they're going to keep asking, and you are actually making a situation worse." The next morning, it's still going on. It's still getting bigger. So I call both of them and I said, "You have until four o'clock today. Either you tell them or I'm telling them, but one of us needs to tell them exactly what happened." And shortly after 4:00, Larry Kudlow came out to a press huddle and knowing that they were going to ask the question, they must have discussed it. And they said, "Why would she say that about sanctions if it wasn't going to happen?" And he said, "Nikki's great, whatever. I just think she got confused." And I was literally watching the news when he said that, and I saw that The Five on Fox was coming on, and I texted Dana Perino and I said, "Can you put me on the record as saying with all due respect, I don't get confused?" And she picked up the phone and she called me and she said, "Okay, do I have this right?" And I said, "That's all you need to say."

Dana Perino (Fox News): In the last half hour, I was able to get in touch with Nikki Haley, and she said, "With all due respect, I don't get confused." So there is some clarity, at least from her part, on that tonight.

Nikki: And within five minutes, I got a call from Larry and he was like, "Nikki, you know I love you. You know I appreciate you. I happen to say that, but you know I love you. You know everything's good." And I said, "Well, I appreciate you calling." I said, "But Larry, I need you to go fix it." And he goes, "What do you mean fix it?" I said, "You need to go tell them that I'm not confused, that the decision was that we were going to have sanctions and the president changed his mind." And he said, "I can't do that. I just told him." I said, "Oh no, you can and you will." And I said, "And I need you to do it in the next five or 10 minutes." And to Larry's credit, who I get along perfectly well with before and after all of this, to his credit, he went right out to the press and told what happened and why it happened, and the whole thing went away.

Daniel: But you had nerves of steel and backbone, a lot of grit. Were they trying to tell you, no, just throw the line, take the fall, and why wouldn't be the right thing? How do you navigate between when you need to be loyal to the point of just hurting yourself and saying a lie versus be transparent to the people?

Nikki: I mean, this wasn't in any way disparaging to Trump, right? This was the other guys doing their thing, not wanting to come out and say it and trying to just sweep it under the rug. But that was my integrity on the line. I don't say things unless I know. I mean, that was the reason I had that relationship with you, and I'm a truth teller. If I tell you something, you can take it to the bank. It was important for me to continue to have that. I want to go

Daniel: Deeper on that issue beyond because this is for me what's most interesting about being a politician or not being a politician. I'm very much like you're very transparent. In the political world, that does not... So for me, integrity, transparency, long-term relationship, that's how I, to your point, how I built businesses. And in the political world, sometimes it's loyalty, party, above country. It drives me nuts. It drives me nuts that a lot of times, a lot of these decisions tend to put the party over the interest of the country. I don't know. How do you navigate that?

Nikki: Let me tell you a story. When I won the State House seat in South Carolina, I defeated a 30-year incumbent. Ignorance is bliss. I just didn't know any better. I didn't know you weren't supposed to run against a 30-year incumbent in primary. And my whole campaign was, he's been there 30 years, no disrespect, but we have way too many lawyers in the State House. They need a really good accountant. I'm an accountant. And I happened to win. I had been at the State House two or three years at that point, and in South Carolina, a lot of legislation would be read across the desk by voice vote. All in favor, say aye. All opposed? Nay. The ayes have it. I was focused on small businesses. I was focused on making sure that we had a good business environment, all of those things. But one day we're sitting in the chambers and there's a bill read across the desk that would give legislators a pay raise. All in favor, say aye. All opposed, silence, the ayes have it. And yet no one would admit that they just gave themselves a pay raise. I was mortified. We had a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican governor, and I went and the next day filed a bill that said anything important enough to be debated on the floor of the House or the Senate is important enough for the people to see how their legislator voted. The Speaker of the House came to me and said, "Put the bill away. We don't need to have it. We will decide what the public needs to see and what they don't." I remember going home to my husband, Michael, saying, "If I can't even get legislative votes on the record, what am I doing here?" And he said, "Then fight." So I went around the entire state and said, "Did you know of all the bills passed in the House? Only 8% were on the record. Did you know of all the bills passed in the Senate? Only 1% was on the record." So if you didn't know how your House member voted 92% of the time, if you didn't know how your Senator voted 99% of the time, how did you know who to vote for when you went to the polls? And the people in South Carolina were shocked. To put it in perspective, my first year in office, I was chairman of the freshman class. Second year, I was majority whip. Third year, I was on a powerful business committee. Fourth year, I was subcommittee chair of banking. The year that I would not put that bill away, they stripped me of everything. I lost every ranking, every committee. I could take the well. No one would listen to me speak. I could try and sponsor something no one would co-sponsor. So I ran for governor. And one of the first things, one of the first bills we signed into law is now in South Carolina, anything debated on the floor of the House or the Senate requires a legislative vote on the record, and I took it a step further and did it on every section of the budget as well.

Daniel: I mean, this is an insane story in so many ways. First of all, sometimes when they go and get stuff, you double down and you just don't let bullies bully you. The common theme of everything is you need to be so strong. So as a kid, were you born that way or were you built into somebody that has that background?

Nikki: It was my parents. I mean, my dad, he was one of the smartest people I've ever met, but he taught me respect and grace and always being kind. And my mom taught me strength. She was stand up for yourself. She wouldn't let us get bullied. And if there was nothing that if I wanted it bad enough that I couldn't go do it. I mean, my mom was - She

Daniel: Was just like a coach giving inspirational speaker or what was it? She

Nikki: Was tough.

Daniel: All of us as parents want that toolkit. What was your mom doing to make you strong?

Nikki: She was tough.

Daniel: Elaborate.

Nikki: If she ever saw me cry, she'd say, "Get a glass of water and go to your room." We were not allowed to cry in front of anybody.

Daniel: My God, I would've not made it in your family.

Nikki: No, and I could be an emotional person, but it was she taught emotional toughness.

Daniel: My dad taught me to be comfortable crying. Literally, it was very important to him, both in Mexico and in the United States, a man shouldn't cry. And my dad said, "Be yourself." And he taught me the importance of being comfortable with my emotions and being a human. And it's interesting because I admire you a lot, but it's a very different lesson.

Nikki: We had to be guarded. I mean, we had a hard time in that small town.

Daniel: Which is better because I cannot ever be a politician. I don't have that. And so I guess if you want to build KIND, let them cry if you want to be president.

Nikki: I learned mental toughness from her. I learned emotional toughness from her.

Daniel: You tried to teach the same to your kids?

Nikki: I think I've taught my kids to be strong, but I've never told them, "If you're going to cry, go to your room." I never took it to that level. Are

Daniel: Your mom and dad still around?

Nikki: No, they both passed away a year apart right after I suspended the campaign.

Daniel: You're kidding?

Nikki: Yeah.

Daniel: You decide to run for president. Michael gets -

Nikki: Deployed.

Daniel: Deployed for a year. You're running this very difficult campaign. I

Nikki: Had a daughter that was getting married. We had to get her married during that as well, and I had two sick parents at home.

Daniel: And then you suspend, and then they pass away. First of all, were they very proud of you? Are you crazy? Why are you running for president?

Nikki: So proud. So proud. I mean, they were the ones that... They were my biggest cheerleaders always.

Daniel: They would've never imagined. They would've never dreamt that you're going to be governor, let alone UN ambassador, let alone run for president. They would never imagine

Nikki: That. That's the American dream. Debate nights, my dad would be wearing a Nikki Haley for president hat. My mom would be wearing the t-shirt right in front of the TV, and I'd get a picture of them. They were so proud.

Daniel: They never saw anything like this coming. Or did your mom say, "You can be anything you want, you can be president?"

Nikki: My parents always told us, "Whatever you do, be great at it." And they always believed in God's blessings, and they would say the best way to appreciate God's blessings is to give back. And so service was very much a part of our family.

Daniel: Both your parents were Sikh and you converted to Christianity when you married Michael. Were your parents heartbroken when you became Christian?

Nikki: They weren't because my parents, when I was growing up, my mom would always take us to different churches and she would always say, "It's important that you know that everybody has their way to God, and what we care is that you find your way." And so would they have loved for me to stay Sikh? Yes, I know they would have, but at the end of the day, It was the relationship that we had with God that was the most important.

Daniel: It sounds like they supported you when you were crazy enough to wind up going to run for state office when you became governor, when you became ambassador, when you ran for president, put yourself in that situation. What were the pivotal moments that brought you to run for office?

Nikki: The story that really stands out in my mind is when I got my first job and I was accounting supervisor for a company in the six of their subsidiaries, it was an all male company. And I remember I had been there maybe three or four weeks and we were having a meeting and the president comes flying in like 10 minutes late and the CFO looks at me and says, "Nikki, why don't you go get Paul a cup of coffee?" And I remember thinking, I didn't know what I was going to do at that moment, but whatever I did was going to affect how they treated me. And I said, "Absolutely, no problem." And I leaned to the phone in the center of the table and I called my assistant and I said, "Pam, will you please get Paul a cup of coffee?" They never asked me to get a cup of coffee again. And I think -

Daniel: You very elegantly said, "Don't do that."

Nikki: Because that was the side of my dad, which is you don't have to embarrass people. You don't have to talk down to people. People don't always know the right thing to do. Your job is to show them what

Daniel: To do. It's an essential part of who you are that I've noticed helped you solve problems and a lot of people misunderstand it. And it's really an essential part of being a builder. Example, when my team was preparing the brief with me for this, one of the things, "Well, why didn't you call out this person? Why didn't you call out this person?" And you said in a quote something about a leader is not meant to take sides. And he's like, "Yes, take sides." And sometimes taking sides doesn't actually solve the problem.

Nikki: Well, I strongly believe you take sides, but how you do it matters. So many people look at the act. I look at the future. How you do things will affect how people treat you, how they see you, whether they want to work with you again, whether they want to do something again. And I think that moment about the coffee, they weren't trying to disrespect me. They just didn't know any better. And so I could have screamed and yelled and said, "Oh, this is... How could

Daniel: You-" But you're also not meek. You don't just let it happen. You find an elegant way to -

Nikki: But instead it was more productive for me to show them what they should have done. And that's what I did. And you could tell on their faces that they were embarrassed, but I didn't have to say something to embarrass them. I just needed to show them.

Daniel: A very important build or break moment for you was in 2015, a white supremacist murders nine Black parishioners at the church in their Bible studies. You've talked with respect about the Confederate flag standing for heritage, but you learn about what happened and all of a sudden you start real because the shooter had a Confederate flag that he was wrapped around and you rise up to the moment, flank by Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott and say, "Okay, we are going to make a change." And all of a sudden, not just all of South Carolina, but the entire country pivots following that task. Walk me through how you approached that, how you do that, and then also how you navigate to your point, not judging people that grew up respecting the Confederate flag. It's not about A, you're a bad person, but finding a way to evolve. Walk me through how as a leader you do

Nikki: That. Of all the things I look at my life, that was the hardest that I personally went through. There was a lot that went into what you saw on TV. There was a lot of behind the scenes that went on. I'll start by saying you have to understand the scene of it. South Carolinians went to Bible study every Wednesday. That's just a Southern thing. You would have that. And on this Wednesday night, 12 people went to Bible study. And what made this amazing was that on that night, someone else showed up. He didn't look like them. He didn't act like them. He didn't sound like them. They didn't call the cops. They didn't throw him out. Instead, they pulled up a chair and they prayed with him for an hour. And when they bowed their heads in that last prayer, he began to shoot.

Daniel: Was he sick?

Nikki: These were people like Ethel Lance. Her daughter had died from breast cancer a couple of years prior, but she would go around Mother Emanuel Church cleaning, singing One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus. That's all I ask of you. Give me the strength every day to do what I have to do. Tywanza Sanders was our youngest victim, had just finished college, had the world in front of him. And on that night, he stood in front of the killer in front of his great 87-year-old, great aunt Susie. He stood between her and the killer and he looked at the killer and said, "You don't have to do this. We mean no harm to you." Or it was people like Cynthia Hurd, who was a librarian and it was just her life motto to say, "Be kinder than necessary." That's who these people were. They weren't famous. They weren't well known, but they loved their family, they loved their church and they loved their community. And this was a kid that decided he wanted to start a race war. The pastor of that church was a senator. And so when I got the calls that all of this happened, I immediately called, he was a Democrat senator. I immediately called -

Daniel: State senator.

Nikki: Yes. I immediately called him and I said, Senator Pinckney, I've heard what's happened. I'm coming down there first thing tomorrow morning. Whatever your congregation needs, whatever we need to do, we will take care of this and we will find him. And what haunts me to this day is he was supposed to be at the State House. But on that night, he ended up going to that Bible study and it haunts me that my phone call, the phone was ringing in his pocket when I called. So South Carolina was broken. There had never in the country been a shooting in a place of worship, and the Confederate flag had been an issue for a very long time. Governor David Beasley, prior to me, called for it to come down and he was defeated. And so I was sitting the next day just trying to get my head around it. And there was the killer that came out with this manifesto draped in the Confederate flag. And I called my staff on that Saturday and I said, "I want you to schedule four meetings for me on Monday morning, first thing. One, I want it to be with Republican leadership. The second one, I want it to be with Democrat leadership. The third, I want it to be with the federal delegation. And the fourth, I wanted it to be key community leaders, very small group that we knew we had." And I said, "And don't tell them why we're meeting," because I knew they wouldn't show up. And on that morning, I went and in each meeting I said, "Today at four o'clock, I'm going to ask for the Confederate flag to come down. If you will stand with me, I will forever be grateful. And if you won't, I'll never tell anybody you were in this room." And I have kept my word to this day on who was with me and who wasn't with me, what they said in that room, all of that. I will take that to my grave. And at four o'clock I had my husband there because I thought he was going to be the only one standing with me. But instead we had house members, we had senators, we had community leaders, Blacks, whites, we had Strom Thurmond's son. Everybody was there. And I said, "A flag is a living, breathing, symbolic thing. This flag deserves to be in a museum. That's where it needs to go. If you want to fly it on your private property, you can fly it. But in front of the state house, we need to put it in its rightful place." I had to do it in such way because part of the state saw the Confederate flag as heritage and service. The other half of the state saw it as hate. My job wasn't to judge either side. My job was to get them to see where we wanted to go. And so over the next few days, the hardest part was me getting the legislature to try and move on

Daniel: It. What you did. A tool I use a lot is also move people forward because if you want to the past, it's very hard who's right, who's wrong. I've worked really hard on Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If you're litigating the past, close to impossible, if you focus on what the future you want for your children, much easier to build consensus. So I get that. I didn't get how and why you wanted to give a free pass for those that wouldn't have the courage to stand with you. Why did you allow people to say, "Stand with me and I'll be loyal to you." I get that. And if you don't want, just no problem, I won't tell them you're here. Why were you so kind to them?

Nikki: Because it was about the people of South Carolina. It was about those families of those victims. No one needed to see any more

Daniel: Separation. You didn't want to create us versus them and attack and -

Nikki: No. And actually the entire country came to the State House because trying to get that legislation passed was a whole nother act of... I mean, that was God sent.

Daniel: But you're doing what you did. I'm just trying to... It's a really interesting tool I haven't thought about. By telling people, "Stand with me and I will stand with you. Don't stand with me. I won't do anything." You were signaling, "Join me those I want, but I don't want to start fighting and dividing others." And then they were smart enough to also not then attack because then -

Nikki: And we didn't need any more division. I was trying to unify the state at this point. We had Jesse Jackson come in. We had Al Sharpton come in. I attended every single funeral. And I remember Al Sharpton stood up at church at one of the funerals and is the very first one. And he raised all this Cain and all this division and he said, "And there sits Governor Nikki Haley." And he said, "The number of times I've protested outside of her office and now she wants to be at the funeral." So then I had to speak after him. I said, "First of all, Reverend Sharpton, you have never once protested outside of my office." I said, "Because if you did, I would've invited you in and hugged you." And then I went on and said what needed to be said. I just made that one comment. Afterward, he came running up to me saying, "I didn't mean anything. I didn't mean anything." I said, "Let me tell you something. Our state is divided. If you are coming here to create further divisions, there's no place for you. If you want to help us bring this state together, then you are more than welcome to be here." And he left.

Daniel: There's so many people that use division to rule, to divide and conquer and rather than to solve problems. And one of the essential things that a builder does is to avoid that. Can you walk me through what you did right and also what you did wrong? A couple of very practical pieces of advice, not just for someone that wants to run for governor or run a state, but as an executive leader.

Nikki: I mean, two things in particular. We had a 13% unemployment rate at the time, and South Carolinians were down on themselves. They had put all their resources in the textile basket, and when the textiles went overseas, so did all the jobs for South Carolina. And so I knew that if I was going to help the economy, I had to bring in jobs. We had to change the chemistry of what South Carolinians were known to do. And so immediately streamlined all our agencies, got rid of paperwork. We were very focused on being efficient, helping small businesses, but then I started to sell South Carolina. And what I did when I recruited, I didn't want to just take a company from another state. I wanted to make things in America. So I went and recruited outside to bring manufacturing jobs in. When we brought those companies in, I would say, "I'm only going to ask you for two things. One, when you need your business needs, I'm going to ask you to use our small businesses in South Carolina to do that. The second thing is we will send people to your country. We will learn how you train. We will learn how you manage. We will come back. If you will let me teach my South Carolinians, you can interview them. And all I ask is that you interview them before you bring somebody from somewhere else." We trained them in our technical schools. 97% of them were hired. These are people who used to do textiles. And by the time I left, we were building planes with Boeing, more BMWs than any place in the world. We brought a Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, five international tire companies. They were referring to us as the beast of the Southeast. But the beautiful part is we went down to a 4% unemployment and all those jobs were our South Carolinians. They didn't have to bring other people in. That's the first thing. The second thing is I was obsessed with our prison system. I wanted to know how people got in there, what their life was like in there, and what happened when they got out. I went to the prisons. My security didn't like that, but I went to men's prisons, maximum security prisons, women's prisons, all of that to understand. And what we started doing in South Carolina, we started teaching them financial literacy. We taught them how to do a resume. We gave them faith services, and then I asked my businesses to put equipment behind the fence. We started teaching them a trade. Now in South Carolina, when someone leaves the fence, they have a job to go to the next day. South Carolina has the lowest recidivism rate in the country.

Daniel: Are you serious? Wow.

Nikki: Because when you have to lift people - We train a lot of these training people. You have to lift people because what I saw is - They have an alternative. These women would get out of prison. The only places they could go was in a restaurant or a bar. They weren't making enough money, so they have to -

Daniel: Why has that not become the rule? That sounds so logical.

Nikki: It takes more time. It takes more effort, but you're changing someone's life for the better. And everybody in South Carolina benefited from that. And it's just putting a little more though, not just thinking about the number. Did

Daniel: You have opposition to that

Nikki: One? No opposition. I don't even think people knew I was doing it.

Daniel: You've had two styles of leadership or execution. One is you turned a crisis into an opportunity to change the Confederate flag and put it in a museum. But on the prison stuff, you did it just quietly without galvanizing people and then going back to generating jobs, you were using marketing, you were using your own persona. Do you mind going back for a minute? Because I find that stunning what you described that you got Boeing in there, you got all these companies in there. A couple more very practical tools on how you got Boeing or any of these other companies. Just give us a story of how you pushed it through because that's not easy to achieve.

Nikki: The same negotiating skills that I learned on that playground apply to when you're recruiting companies. Many were fearful of unions, many were fearful of government, many were fearful of promises. And what I did was I didn't give the house away. I didn't believe in giving a lot of money. What I did believe is you give them the infrastructure around, whether it's the roads, the bridges, whatever they need, and then you put the trained workers in front of them so that they have those resources. I gave them a liaison. I think

Daniel: You probably were also very charming. I

Nikki: Gave every single one of them my personal cell phone and I said, "When you come here, you'll never have to call anybody. You can call me directly." I looked at it as I worked for those companies because if they took care of our South Carolinians, I was going to make sure we took care of them and made sure a business environment was healthy for them.

Daniel: I want to pivot back now. At the United Nations, can you tell us a couple tips of how you achieved some of what you achieved? Walk us through one example of something you did, and then I'm going to ask you an even tougher question.

Nikki: Yeah. The one that I think was the most consequential was getting out of the Iran deal. When President Obama first decided to get into the Iran deal, he didn't do it through Congress, he did it by executive order. And when he did that, Congress wanted to have accountability. So what they did was they passed a bill and said every 90 days a president has to decide whether that is still in the best interest of the United States. So President Trump comes in, we have our first National Security Council. His 90 days is coming up. He's asking all the right questions. Everybody's pretty much telling him, "Yes, we just need to keep doing this. We need to keep doing this." And he was asking a couple extra questions. It was legit that he... And the questions he was asking were good ones. And I saw that he was kind of nervous about it. I was nervous because Iran was violating every single UN resolution that they were supposed to be holding. They were selling ballistic missiles, they were funding terrorist organizations, everything they weren't supposed to do and being held by a resolution, they were lying and they were cheating and doing it. So I went to the president and I said, "I understand you're uncomfortable with this Iran deal. I am too. If you will let me, I would like to go to Vienna where the International Atomic Energy Agency is and ask them questions about this deal, and then I will come back to you, let you know everything I have, and then at the next 90 days, you'll have all the ammunition you need to make the decision." Against Rex Tillerson who didn't want me to go, Trump said, "Go." So I go and I asked the panel, "We know Iran is building this nuclear material and we know they're doing research in the universities. How often do you inspect the universities?" They said, "We don't inspect universities." I said, "Okay, well, we know the production is happening at their military installations. How often are you inspecting their military installations?" They said, "We're not allowed to inspect their military installations." So I said, "Okay, what is it that you inspect?" They said, "Well, if we get a tip, we give them 45 days And then we go and we inspect." I came back and told President Trump, "Not only should you get out of the Iran deal, it would be irresponsible for you to stay in." At that point, I went out and made the case for why he could get out of the deal so that we could get the public engaged, and he went and made the decision to get out of the Iran deal. That to me was one of the most consequential things. I mean, you look at the war that we have now, but the whole point was they've lied. They've always lied. They've always wanted to destroy America. They've always wanted to destroy the West. They've made no bones about it, and us giving them money doesn't make them nicer or make them less hateful.

Daniel: Let's talk for a minute about the Islamic Republic regime. 47 years, they've been saying death to America, death to Israel, deploying the largest sponsor of terrorism by far, it's not even close, today spending billions of dollars on social media with bots trying to undermine and divide Americans, killing their own people just in two days, somewhere like 58,000 people. The vast majority of Iranians hate that regime that's oppressing for so many years. No, they're

Nikki: Such

Daniel: Good

Nikki: People. They deserve a better

Daniel: Life. They're amazing people. When I post content about what's going on, I'm like, they love me because I just talk about what these people are suffering through. I do understand that it's difficult that the oil prices are up and people are seeing that on their bills. Yes, this is so painful, but it's been 47 years of pain and it's only going to get worse. If we don't bring this regime down, then tomorrow they're going to try again and again until they figure it out. If you were the president of the United States or you were advising the president of the United States, what would you do different of what this current administration is doing? Because I personally don't love the Trump administration, but honestly, at least this government is trying to stand up to this regime. But what would you do different?

Nikki: Obama thought giving them money would change their behavior. It didn't work. Biden thought trying to appease them would change their behavior. It didn't work. Trump was courageous to get out of the Iran deal. Very good move. This go around, I think he was right to go in and strike Iran because they were the weakest they had ever been. The difference I would've done, this is when a national security council matters the most because what you do is you have everybody around that table, and as you were preparing for those strikes, what you would've heard is, "Well, this is what it will do to agriculture, fertilizer, all those. This is what it's going to do to oil prices. This is what will happen to commerce." But what would happen in the strait of Hormuz? Are we looking at the Red Sea? What's plan B? What's plan C? You play it out so that there are no surprises. And I think coming off of Venezuela, which was another great thing when he extracted Maduro, this was never going to be easy. And so I think he went and did the strikes, and the mistake made was the Iranians always say, "Oh, we want to talk. We want to talk. Let's negotiate." Whenever they say that, that's code for we're going to refuel, we're going to re-arm. They build back up so that they can hit you again. You can never trust the regime. Now the Trump administration is finally doing what needs to be done. You have to choke them economically. The regime has no problem suffering. They knew this was a game of chicken. They knew it was who folded first. They knew that Americans weren't going to have the stomach politically or economically to wait this out the way they could. The gas prices started to go up. Politically, Trump was feeling the heat. Elected officials have felt the heat, and then economically, we're seeing it in utility bills and gas bills, all those things. Bottom line, don't let them breathe.

Daniel: Economic sanctions, which Secretary Bessent is doing, why are they not bumping some of their oil infrastructure or finding more of their missile facilities or hitting the...

Nikki: Well, first of all, understand that what Bessent's doing is not just sanctions. Finally, what they're doing is they're going after their shadow fleets. The Chinese have bought so much of their oil for so long. They're getting supplies from Russia. They're dealing with North Korea, all of those things. When you start to sanction those, that's when you truly stop. And blocking the strait of Hormuz so that none of their oil can get out. Those two things together are pretty powerful. They have not yet sanctioned the Chinese banks, and I think they should. The second they do it, China's going to put their hands up because they don't care enough about Iran to suffer for them. They just like helping Iran because it's needling us. And so when you truly put the economic choke hold on them, that's the one thing they care about. And the thing they fear the most is Iranian citizens standing up in that protest. Do you know to this day in Iran, when they wake up, they see bodies hanging from the trees, they do that to remind them, this is what will happen to you if you protest.

Daniel: Still right now?

Nikki: Still today.

Daniel: Why doesn't the media talk about it? Drives me nuts that the media does not -

Nikki: Because they have social media cutoff. Some is still getting through.

Daniel: No, the US media. Why doesn't the US media... I don't know about these bodies and I care about these issues. I didn't even know about this

Nikki: Bodies. No, and you think about what we talk about in America. Can you imagine waking up with your children and walking down the street and seeing bodies hanging so that you are so fearful of saying anything? Can you imagine living the way they live because the regime has just fed off of them forever? I mean, no one deserves to live the way these Iranians are living, but the regime, the one thing that makes them squirm is when they stop with the money and we're seeing them squirm and now they're saying they want to negotiate again, and the key is we cannot fall for it. You have to hold China accountable. You have to hold Russia accountable. You have to hold their finances accountable. And then I know Trump is looking at Pickaxe Mountain. What we know is they have gone and stored a lot of their things in Pickaxe Mountain. I think if they go and see that there's more nuclear activity there or there's more to be done with the oil, I think they will. But you always want to do economically first before you go in and do anything major. I think what's more important is the Iranian people aren't going to feel like they can stand up unless they have the weapons to defend themselves. That's the real question is at what point and how are you going to arm the Iranian people so that they can? Because once they stand up -

Daniel: What's the answer to that?

Nikki: I mean, the US has been known before that we can go and supply things to help, but you have to get them on their knees first. You have to get the regime on their knees. You have to get them fully weakened so that people feel strong enough, and are they going to trust it? Because they went out to the streets when they were told to go out to the streets and they watched thousands of people die and they're living with it every day. So I mean, this was tragic, traumatic, and the spine that they had, the courage that they had is gone.

Daniel: I'll ask you one last question on foreign policy, and then I want to pivot to you running for president and that journey, and also about parties and politics. But would there be anything you could use the United Nations for on this front or the UN is so dysfunctional that there's nothing they could do vis-a-vis Iran today?

Nikki: I said to the Secretary General, and I said to my ambassador friends when I left, is the only way the United Nations will ever be relevant is if they have the courage to talk about things that are uncomfortable to talk about. They have yet to talk about COVID, what China knew, what they didn't do to protect people. They've yet to talk about the World Health Organization and how they stayed silent and the connection between them and China. I mean, millions of people died because of COVID and they haven't had one hearing on what happened and what the world needs to do to prevent it from happening again. Not one, because they don't want to touch China. You're going to have high level week soon and Taiwan, the officials in Taiwan aren't even allowed in the United Nations building unless they claim to be Chinese. Think about that. That's a full democracy and you're not going to allow them in the building. Until the- They're

Daniel: Not a member state, Taiwan?

Nikki: No, because China will not allow them to be a member state. But the idea that even with a Taiwanese badge, they can't walk in the doors of the UN. And I tried to change that and we were making progress and China went in and just read the Riot Act to Secretary General and threatened him and he backed

Daniel: Off. To local politics, do one last one on China. What would be your advice for President Trump in his negotiations with China right now?

Nikki: Understand that they want to achieve world domination, and if you know they want to achieve world domination, know that that's at America's expense. And so stop allowing thousands of Chinese students to come work in our research areas here in America and study at our schools. Start to focus on these Chinese police stations they have throughout the country that's policing Chinese nationals that are here. Look at the labs that we've found that have living viruses in them by Chinese nationals that have been found in our country. Start to look at how they're stealing all of our AI technology and that stealing that, they're going to try and make it stronger to do harm to us. There's so many things. Understand adversaries are adversaries for life.

Daniel: Which ones are enemies and which ones are frenemies between Islamic Republic regime, clearly an enemy, but the people are a friend? So that one I will answer. They're an enemy, the government, but the people are a friend. Russia, China, North Korea, Qatar, Turkey. Walk me through who is an enemy and who's a frenemy and who's a friend.

Nikki: So the regime, it's not even worth communicating with them because they are going to be terrorists. That's who they are. All of these other countries, we need to talk to them, right? So it's not like you cut off communication entirely, but you say only what needs to be said and you don't let them pull the wool over your eyes. China just passed legislation that now high level Chinese officials can no longer travel to the United States or outside of China because they don't want to happen to them what they do to Americans when they go to China, where they surveil them, where they steal from them, where they get intellectual property, all of those things, they're starting to really protect. That's why they're doing export controls and everything else. China's getting smarter and we can't be weak in front of them. There's a lot of things that they've done to hurt us with the Iran war. There's a lot of things they've done to hurt us with the Russia-Ukrainian war. There's a lot of things they're trying to do to hurt us with Taiwan, and there's a lot they're trying to do with AI and other things. Don't give them an inch because they will turn it into something much bigger. We have to be smart.

Daniel: So let's pivot to American policy and understand what President Trump talks about America first. Is America First America's strength and leadership in the world or is America First American withdrawal and not being involved in other things? Because I think it's a very big question for the Republican Party today. I'm very curious how this is going to play out and what you will do about it.

Nikki: Well, first of all, America's people are America's strength. All day long, I will say that. It is the heart of who we are and how We feel and what we believe and our love of freedom and democracy that makes us the strength that we are. We just had to endure the 25th anniversary of 9/11. The number one lesson you take away from 9/11 is when you focus just on America, those that hate us will come here. Our goal is to prevent another 9/11. In order to prevent another 9/11, you have to deal with terrorists there. That's why we're involved with Iran. That's why we're trying to stop them from having a nuclear weapon. That's why we're trying to stop them from doing more terrorist activities. You have to control it overseas so that it doesn't touch Americans. That's the number one rule is we have to keep Americans safe. That's financially safe. That's from a national security perspective. Are you protecting freedoms? Are you protecting individual liberties? Those are the things we should focus on, but understand safety and national security. We have to be dealing abroad in order to keep ourselves safe. This is about preventing war, not starting a war.

Daniel: So what happens? Whoever gets the nomination in 2028, how would you approach your role in the Republican Party?

Nikki: I think the American people have to approach their role in what American politics are going to look like going forward. This is about our children. This is about our grandchildren. This is about making sure another 9/11 doesn't happen. None of us wants war. I'm the wife of a combat veteran who did two deployments. He was in Afghanistan. I know as a military spouse what that feels like. I don't want anyone's spouse to have to go or son or daughter to have to go, but you do things to prevent them having to go. That's what we should have done. Iran was not dealt with when it needed to be dealt with all 47 years.

Daniel: What are the conditions under which you would run for president in 2028?

Nikki: I'm not running for president in 2028.

Daniel: For certain.

Nikki: For certain.

Daniel: But there's no scenario where things are getting so bad and other leaders don't rise that you'd run in 2028. What about 2032? How do you think about as a leader who is the only woman to have ever won a Republican primary outright? I'll

Nikki: Never say never. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to pigeonhole myself that way, but I know enough to know in 2028, Americans... I don't know what the landscape of the country is yet, and I don't think... We're going to find out in the midterms and we're going to find out after that, but we really have to see where Americans are. It's about them getting the leadership they want. And I think whatever that leadership is - Are

Daniel: There circumstances under which you would be more engaged in helping the candidate and circumstance would say, no, I'm not going to be involved at all because this is an isolationist or this. How would you decide about your -

Nikki: I'm only going to help people I believe in. I mean, I'm only going to fight for... I mean, that's just at the core of who I am. It has to be -

Daniel: What are your red lines?

Nikki: Mine is very clear, national security and keeping America safe. And that means you have to prevent war. And preventing war means that yes, you have to keep our enemies at bay. The economy, our debt, $40 trillion in debt, and Republicans and Democrats are both to blame. They're spending like drunken sailors. No one's talking about it. Entitlements. Social security will go bankrupt in six years. 75 million Americans are going to be affected by that. 25% of their benefits are going to go away and no one in Congress is talking about it.

Daniel: Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are solving issues that 80% of citizens can agree on 80% of the solutions. And the Democrats and Republicans are more focused on scoring points and not solving them. So what can we as citizens do to hold them accountable?

Nikki: But also look at the one thing no one wants to talk about, which is the foreign influence that is now happening in our campaigns. And I can tell you when there were 13 of us running for president, Trump and I were at the last two standing. And in New Hampshire, after Iowa and New Hampshire, the intelligence community asked to meet with me and met with me and said, "We have proof that the Iranians are meddling in your campaign." What they do, the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans to some extent, they all do this. They look for division points. But more than that, there was just a Chinese bot farm that was found, and what they do is they try and create the narratives. The Russians started that in 2016.

Daniel: I saw it this morning. This morning I saw a post and there were so many comments and you'd click and the person commenting has zero followers or two followers. Yes,

Nikki: Those are all bots.

Daniel: Why are social media companies not doing something more about it? Why is the government is not doing something more about it? How can we hold them accountable?

Nikki: I have called the tech companies out in two ways. One, they should show us their algorithms. Every citizen in this country deserves to know why do they see what they see? That's the first thing. The second thing is these tech companies should be required to disclose the number of bots. I have asked them, they all give you excuses and say, "Oh, but we're trying." But think about it, Daniel. The reason the tech companies don't want to let you know, their valuations would go through the floor.

Daniel: I observe on both political parties how loyalty sometimes actually hurts our country and their own party. Which Republican candidate for you, you would not support because they fall below your standards?

Nikki: Oh, I'm not going to say that now because we don't know who the candidate's going to be. But the bigger question that we need to be asking, Daniel, is how do we end up with candidates like this? And the reason we end up with candidates like this is because less than 15% of people vote in primaries. And why do less than 15% of people vote in primaries? Because in school, growing up, we're taught the importance of voting in a general election. And in school, they do not talk about the importance of voting in a primary. That's so important. And I said through my campaign -

Daniel: The single most important piece of advice that Nikki is giving you today, if you care about your country, vote in the primary. I really do think that's important.

Nikki: And what I said in the campaign was, in a general election, you're given a choice, but in a primary, you make your choice. Make your choice. Be a part of who's going to represent you in the party. Be a part of that. You can't complain once you get to the general if you were never involved in the primary process.

Daniel: Give us something that we don't know about running for president, that experience. I mean, that must have been quite a heady, challenging experience because you challenged President Trump who didn't take that lightly.

Nikki: I mean, you have to be able to endure an enormous amount of pain. You have to be able to... It pushes every limit. There were 16, 17-hour days. You're in a different place every day. You don't know where you are. I didn't do the DeSantis route and fly private. We were flying commercial the entire time. We were staying in hotels that were gross, the whole thing, because we wanted every dollar to go to touching a voter. And to do that, I had my staff buy their own trash cans. I mean, we were super economical. And at the end, what I'm so proud of is at the end of the campaign when I suspended, we sent donors back money. That's how - Did you

Daniel: Get my checks?

Nikki: You did, I promise. But more importantly, I think the biggest thing about running for president is what I did to get ready for it. And that was I ran a half marathon.

Daniel: Really?

Nikki: I had not run before. I mean, played tennis in high school, but I -

Daniel: Drop the stamina.

Nikki: It was a -

Daniel: Physical aspect.

Nikki: I needed to know before I put my family through it, before I put my teen through it, that I had the mental strength, the emotional strength, and the physical strength to endure any amount of pain.

Daniel: What about for the mental and emotional?

Nikki: When you're running a half marathon and your body starts to shut down, it's your mind that keeps you going and your mind tells you, "Forget the pain, mute out all the noise and mute out all the distractions." And then the emotional strength is when you think you can't take another step, you dig deep and you say, "Yes, I can," because your body tends to make you think something, but your mind is the one that's going to make the decision.

Daniel: Tell me the craziest story that happened to you on the campaign trail.

Nikki: So many. But one, we were leaving New Hampshire, and when we were walking out, getting into the car, somebody tried to jump into the car. One of the people got him out of the car and then he jumped in the front seat, and then they got him out of the front seat, and then he jumped on the hood of the car and was just screaming.

Daniel: Against you or just mentally range? Oh yeah.

Nikki: Against that he was so angry I was running against Trump.

Daniel: Oh, he was like turning.

Nikki: Yeah. Yeah. Or even - That's

Daniel: What's dangerous about our political moment is that on the left, there's all this cancel culture and on the right from President Trump, there's punch down culture and a combination of them intimidates people from speaking up and being themselves.

Nikki: Not only that, it was just a few months ago, someone was arrested and put in prison because he paid an informant to have me killed. IRGC, the Iranian regime, paid a Pakistani businessman money to do it. And that's the reason why I'm so adamant about Iran is they are targeting Americans on American soil. They have tried to get Trump multiple times. We should not be giving them even a breath when they're doing things like that, but that's because I speak out against the regime. We have to be truth tellers.

Daniel: Well, now that we've reached the moment of truth, we're going to move to the Mexican Inquisition. So I'm going to ask you tough, tough questions and you have to choose. You can't give me a political diplomatic answer. You need to make choices. First question, who is an unlikely hero that helped you get to this moment? President Trump who nominated you to the United Nations or Hillary Clinton who in 2003 gave a speech that inspired you also to run for politics?

Nikki: That's so tough because before I ran for the State House, I went to this Women in Leadership conference and Hillary Clinton was speaking and everybody told me I shouldn't run at that point except my mom. Hillary Clinton said on stage to the group of women, "For every reason people tell you not to do it, that's exactly why you should." I walked out of there and I said, "I'm running for the State House."

Daniel: So had it not been for that moment, maybe you had not done

Nikki: It. I wouldn't have done it. All I knew was everybody was telling me all the reasons why I couldn't, and she was like, "Those are all the reasons you should."

Daniel: So should we give her the unlikely hero because she's the unsung hero? I

Nikki: Can say that between her and a fortune cookie, the second thing was I opened a fortune cookie when the race was really nasty when I ran for that state house seat and the fortune cookie said winners do what losers don't want to.

Daniel: So I should have put fortune cookie or Hillary Clinton. Which famous South Carolina do you think you would have a more fascinating dinner conversation with? Stephen Colbert, the former host of The Late Show or Ben Bernanke, the former Fed chair?

Nikki: So I've met Stephen Colbert, so I would have to say Ben Bernanke.

Daniel: Because it's someone new that you haven't met?

Nikki: Yeah, I love to learn. And so as much as I can learn, I would just love to hear that conversation.

Daniel: Which historical figure, if you could choose one strategic advisor and only one, would you choose? Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State and National Security Council head, or Margaret Thatcher, the former British Prime Minister that was epic also.

Nikki: I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Henry Kissinger when I was at the UN, but Margaret Thatcher. I mean, it's remarkable what she did during her time against all the challenges she went through.

Daniel: What's one thing that broke you and then built you back into who you became and are today, being the outsider governor of South Carolina with constant attacks from within, including ethics investigations and efforts to unseat you, or when you ran for president and Michael was deployed to the Horn of Africa for over a year?

Nikki: What broke me and build me back up was the murders of Mother Emanuel. I was at my lowest, lowest point after attending all those funerals and getting that flag down that I remember being on my knees saying, "God, I can't do this. I need you to help." And the strength I was able to get after that to continue what needed to be done, that was my breaking point, my building point.

Daniel: It was an important moment for our country. It's tragic though sometimes that horrible facts are what needs to then move us. What shaped you more into who you are today, growing as the only Indian family in a South Carolina town of 2,500 people or converting from Sikhism to Christianity at 24 after marrying Michael?

Nikki: I mean, both. I mean, those are such integral parts of my life. One really shaped my character and the other truly shaped my faith. And both of those are so strong, I couldn't pick between the two of those.

Daniel: Which early job or experience was more formative for you? Running for the pageant and then being pulled because you didn't fit the black or white kid thing, or working for your mom doing all the accounting for her clothing store?

Nikki: I started doing the books for the family business at 13, and what I learned from that was when times were tough, you learned how to stretch a dollar and you got creative and you got stronger. And when times were good, you never celebrated because you knew the bad times were going to happen again. So that was definitely a huge thing.

Daniel: What drives you advancing American values to win on behalf of America and prevail, or an instinct to achieve justice in the world to prevent the bad guys from doing evil to the world?

Nikki: I want to fix things. I don't know what the answer is to that, but that's what drives me is seeing a problem and fixing it and having everybody else benefit because you did the work.

Daniel: Okay, Nikki Haley, we're moving to our final stretch, build or break. If it's something that you believe in, it's a thumbs up, you say build, and if it's something you don't like, thumbs down, break. Build or break the Palmetto Bowl.

Nikki: Build.

Daniel: Build or break $5,000 payments to every family if Republicans retain Congress.

Nikki: I'm all for people getting their money back because I think government's wasting it, but where are you getting it from? Because that's a trillion dollars more and I don't want to see us a trillion dollars more in debt, so break until you can give me answers as to where that's coming from.

Daniel: Build or break the United Nations.

Nikki: Oh, break.

Daniel: Build or break, running for president in the future.

Nikki: It's not a break, so I'll say build.

Daniel: Good. Build or break, post-employment lobbying moratoriums for elected officials.

Nikki: Oh, build. 100%.

Daniel: Build or break the Tea Party.

Nikki: Oh, build. I was a product of the Tea Party. It was taxed enough already, and I still am a product of the Tea Party. But

Daniel: What happened? Has it deformed more? What happened?

Nikki: You know what happened is it was this great uprising of the people saying we're taxed enough already, didn't trust government, not enough transparency, too much spending. And then what happened is it started to get fringe groups, but the original though of the Tea Party was great.

Daniel: Build or break child beauty pageants.

Nikki: Break, for sure.

Daniel: Build or break, getting to live in the governor's mansion.

Nikki: Oh, build. It was a great experience with the kids.

Daniel: Build or break, getting locked out of the governor's mansion.

Nikki: Oh, break. Michael was deployed in Afghanistan and he just sent me an email. It was like, "Really, Nikki?"

Daniel: Tell us the story.

Nikki: I was getting the kids out. Michael was deployed. I was governor, and my son had to have... He was doing this event that day, so he had to be dressed up and he couldn't get... He was like, "Mom, I need help with my tie." And so I went to go help and shows how bad I am. It was a clip on tie and I still couldn't get it. And so I got him, got him outside, handed him to security at the time, and I was like, kissed him, said, "Have a good day." And I turned around, I'm in my robe. I turn around and I go to open the door and it's locked and there's security cameras and I'm looking at the security cameras. It felt like forever. It was probably just a minute. And then all of a sudden my daughter opens the door and she's like, "Mom, what are you doing outside in your robe?" I said, "I got locked out." I go and get her dressed, and it's my own fault. I happened to tweeted out what not to do getting locked out with your robe on. I got into the car and security said, "Governor, I'm sorry you've had such a tough day." I was like, "Oh, do you see my tweet?" And he said, "No, I heard it on the radio." I went, "Oh my gosh." And then the next thing I know, my team was calling and all the comms had blown up and they were like, "The TV station's asking for the video." And it was on the Today Show, it was on CNN, it was on... Everybody was talking about me getting locked out, and that's when Michael sent the email and was like, "Really, Nikki?" And I was like, "Ugh."

Daniel: But what I find fun is to hear that your kids are your kids. That's the coolest thing about your story is you're, "Mom, you're the governor of South Carolina, the first female Indian American minority and mom."

Nikki: None of that matters. Anybody that's looking to run for office or ask me anything, I always said if I was a good mom and a good wife, I'd be a good governor. If I was a good mom and a good wife, I'd be a good ambassador. If I was a good mom and a good wife, I'd be a presidential candidate. It's always family first. The kids will tell you I was very conscious about making sure that they felt normal.

Daniel: And also they made you be normal.

Nikki: Yeah.

Daniel: For me, that's what's important about kids. When I was running KIND and I had incredible days or terrible days.

Nikki: They humble you.

Daniel: You're the parent with all their imperfections and they will treat you like their parent, not like the governor of South Carolina. That's

Nikki: Right. It's

Daniel: True. Nikki, it's such a pleasure having you on Build or Break. Thank you so much for being here today.

Nikki: Thanks for the conversation.

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