[Houston Chronicle] NEW YORK - Two of President Donald Trump's senior advisers undermined and ignored him in what they claimed was an effort to "save the country," former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley claims in a new memoir.Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly sought to recruit her to work around and subvert Trump, but she refused, Haley writes in a new book, "With All Due Respect," which also describes Tillerson as "exhausting" and imperious and Kelly as suspicious of her access to Trump.
"Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the president, they weren't being insubordinate, they were trying to save the country," Haley wrote.
"It was their decisions, not the president's, that were in the best interests of America, they said. The president didn't know what he was doing," Haley wrote of the views the two men held.
Tillerson also told her that people would die if Trump was unchecked, Haley wrote.
Tillerson did not respond to a request for comment. Kelly declined to comment in detail, but said that if providing the president "with the best and most open, legal and ethical staffing advice from across the (government) so he could make an informed decision is 'working against Trump,' then guilty as charged."
In the book, which was obtained by The Washington Post ahead of its release Tuesday, Haley offers only glancing critiques of her former boss, saying she and others who worked for Trump had an obligation to carry out his wishes since he was the one elected by voters.
The former South Carolina governor, widely viewed by Republicans as a top potential presidential candidate, has repeatedly sought to minimize differences with Trump while distancing herself from his excesses. Haley, 47, writes that she backed most of the foreign policy decisions by Trump that others tried to block or slow down, including withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord and the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
In a New York interview with The Post coinciding with the book release, Haley also dismissed efforts by House Democrats to impeach Trump. She said she opposes Trump's efforts to seek foreign help for political investigations in a call with Ukraine's president, but that the actions are not impeachable.