John Hubbel Weiss

Associate Professor

John Hubbel Weiss, associate professor of history at Cornell University and expert on the history of the UN, says that Haley’s departure could be related to the appointment of John Bolton as the National Security Advisor and his reputation for steamrolling political opponents.

Weiss says:

“Haley had done a loyal job of noisily bringing Trump’s positions and demands to the attention of the UN, defending most of them, even the withdrawal from the Paris accord. But the one place they disagreed was Russia, where Haley wasn’t quite ready to participate in Trump’s swallowing of the Putin Kool-Aid on a number of issues.

“There is not much evidence yet that Haley has presidential ambitions except her denial of the fact in interviews. In the ‘Trumpschina’ era denials are always a fair piece of evidence for the opposite.

“However, there is another consideration. The claim that Haley initially expressed a desire to resign six months ago points toward the time of John Bolton’s appointment as National Security Advisor. The UN Ambassador under Trump (and Obama) was a ‘Cabinet-level’ position. It was not always so, and bureaucratically that rank supposedly puts the UN Ambassador in a difficult position because they cannot be regularly present in Washington, D.C. to represent their interests. But the National Security Advisor has a position outside the Cabinet hierarchy and in practice, is a far more powerful position, and the media has claimed that Bolton steamrolled Haley particularly in arguments over Russia policy.”