NIKKI HALEY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/UN: “President Donald Trump’s unpredictability may rattle his advisers and other world leaders, but to outgoing U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley the president’s mercurial nature has often been an asset…By harnessing Trump’s unpredictability to her advantage in diplomatic negotiations, Haley said she was just ‘trying to get the job done … by being truthful but also by letting him be unpredictable and not showing our cards.’ But despite Haley’s suggestion that Trump’s wild card approach to foreign policy has been premeditated, the president and his ambassador to the U.N. have not always appeared to be on the same page. In April of this year, after the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad carried out a chemical weapons attack, Haley appeared on a Sunday morning political talk show to announce fresh sanctions against Russia over its support for Assad in his nation’s ongoing civil war. Haley’s announcement reportedly angered the president, who ultimately blocked Haley’s announced sanctions. The episode spilled into the open when a White House official blamed her comments on ‘momentary confusion’ on Haley’s part, to which Haley shot back that she did not ‘get confused.’”
–Caitlin Oprysko, “Haley says Trump’s unpredictability was an asset in U.N. diplomacy,” Politico, December 12, 2018 9:04 am