Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said she was “mortified” when President Joe Biden asked for China’s assistance in preventing the now-ongoing Ukraine crisis on “Meet the Press” Sunday.
Haley said it is “common sense” to never trust or negotiate with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. She then criticized Biden for coordinating with Chinese officials to take action during Russia’s deployment of troops along Ukraine’s border in February.
“I was mortified that Biden went so far as to asking China for help with Russia,” Haley told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “You never ask an enemy for help with another enemy. I never told China anything that I didn’t want Russia to know because you know how they coordinate. It’s the same reason why it’s unthinkable that Biden would be coordinating, or even thinking of getting back into the Iran deal with the Russians and Chinese at the table.”
Haley said understanding who the enemies are is the “first step” to being strong in the U.S. She then said China is “getting incredibly close” with Russia in order to “destroy the West.” (RELATED: ‘Our Athletes Are At Risk’: Nikki Haley Goes After Biden As China Warns Athletes Against Speaking Out)
“We’ve got to wake up, America has to wake up,” she continued. “And we have to start being smart to deal with these tyrants. We can’t continue to let them run all over us.”
Senior Biden administration officials held around half a dozen meetings with China, urging the country to instruct Russia not to invade, the New York Times reported. U.S. officials learned in December that China had shared information with Moscow, and Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping sided with Putin as their military presence grew along Ukraine’s border.
Todd then asked for Haley’s reaction to former Vice President Mike Pence telling GOP donors Friday that “there is no room in this party for apologists for Putin.” The former ambassador replied that Trump’s sanctions against Russia, shutting off Nord Stream 2 pipeline and strengthening the military countered Putin, arguing the current crisis would never have happened under Trump’s administration.
“This never would’ve happened under Trump. What we need to look at now is how do we make sure this doesn’t go further under Biden,” she said. “This has been a terrible mistake since Afghanistan. And one thing after the other we have done nothing but show weakness. We have got to show strength. So what I would say is you can talk about past presidents all you want, but the last thing you need to be doing is looking for the TV remote when your house is burning down,” Haley continued.
Todd pushed back, pointing to the Trump administration’s roll backs on Obama-era sanctions in 2017, plus removing sanctions on a Russian oligarch company the following year and delaying chemical weapons sanctions against Russia in 2020. He then said the former administration held back military aid for Ukraine as a “political stunt.”
“You don’t think any of those things sent a message to Vladimir Putin that America is divided, the West is divided, and he can get away with whatever he wants,” Todd said.
“You kept saying what he tried,” she continued. “All I kept saying is what he did. I was personally there at the United Nations when he got out of the Iran deal, when he sanctioned Putin, when he expelled diplomats, when he refused the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline. So I watched what he did. He did stronger things against Russia than Republican or Democrat presidents before him. This was something that Putin knew not to mess with the United States. Putin needs to know that again.”
“You never sleep with the devil, because then the devil owns you. Europeans are finding that out right now, we need to be smarter than that.”