In a rare sight of intense emotion, Nikki Haley fought back tears as she spoke about her husband’s deployment during a campaign speech in South Carolina on Tuesday afternoon.
Video of Haley’s speech—in which she announced she intends to stay in the 2024 GOP presidential race beyond South Carolina—shows her choking up as she begins speaking about her husband, Maj. Michael Haley.
Michael has been deployed to the Horn of Africa since June 2023 in what is his second stint overseas. Haley indicated she regularly worries his unit, the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade of the South Carolina National Guard, could come under attack.
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“I wish Michael was here today,” she said, bursting into tears. “And I wish our children and I could see him tonight. But we can’t. He’s serving on the other side of the world where conflict is the norm, where terrorists hide among the innocent, where Iran’s terrorist proxies are now attacking American troops.”
The teary speech comes just four days before South Carolina is set to settle its crucial primary. Haley, who was once the governor of the Palmetto State, is expected to again be trounced by Donald Trump.
Trump has attacked Haley’s marriage recently, mentioning at campaign events that Michael is never alongside Haley on the trail.
“What happened to her husband? Where is he? He’s gone,” Trump taunted earlier this month.
Haley has hit back hard against Trump, saying her husband is too busy serving his country to appear with her on the campaign trail (where Trump’s own wife, Melania Trump, has also been missing).
Haley has tried to use Trump’s comments as a way to position herself as being the superior Republican for military families, though those efforts haven’t translated into any momentum with that demographic. Still, she’s leaned hard into her husband’s service while highlighting that Trump was never in the military himself.
“It was hard for us to say goodbye to (Michael) the first time, when he deployed to Afghanistan,” Haley said Tuesday. “It was even harder last summer when he deployed to Africa. The kids and I know why Michael went. He stepped up to keep us safe and not just us. He stepped up to defend our nation’s freedom and our way of life.”
While she shed tears when discussing her family, Haley was particularly fiery throughout the rest of her speech.
Haley unleashed a torrent of criticism against Trump in particular, calling him a “bully” who’s “getting meaner and more offensive by the day.” She added that Trump is “completely distracted” from the campaign as he battles against a quartet of criminal indictments, saying they’ve combined to only make him “more unstable and unhinged.”
With the exits of Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy last month, the GOP primary race continues to be a battle between Haley and Trump, but the former president holds a commanding lead. No matter how dire things become for her campaign, however, Haley said Tuesday she’ll never publicly praise Trump while criticizing him privately—something she claims other Republicans do.
“Of course, many of the same politicians who now publicly embrace Trump privately dread him,” she said. “They know what a disaster he’s been and will continue to be for our party. They’re just too afraid to say it out loud. Well, I’m not afraid to say the hard truth out loud. I feel no need to kiss the ring. And I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him.”
