Surrounded by the many governmental nonprofit and International Agencies and organizations that make decisions that affect each of us everyday. Our location here allows us to be part of those decisions, allows our students access to the uniquely dc t experiential learning opportunities, allows faculty to provide rigorous and highquality scholarshipip and research that informs policymaking and problem solving. It allows our university to serve as a hub for timely discussions importance and relevant to all of us. Tonight we are pleased to host former United States ambassador to the United Nations, nikki haley, in a discussion about her new book, with all due respect which offers a firsthand perspective on nationalch and International Matters as well as behindthescenes account of her tenure in the trump administration. Ambassador hayley will be joined tonight by moderator and United States senator joni ernst who in 2014 was elected as the first woman to serve in federal elected officede from the statef iowa. Please enjoy this evenings discussion. And thank you for being here. [applause]. When South Carolina governor nikki haley was sworn in she became the states first female governor. Results is what i promised the people and results is what im determined to give them. The governor said its the single largest Economic Investment in the state, more than 200 year history. Bowl manufacturing right here in charleston county. Its a great day inch South Carolina. 560 million invested. 1700 jobs right here in chester county. Its a great win. The best part of whats happened is watching all of these drops notch is going to cities, but going to rural South Carolina because if you can give a person a job you take care of a family and we have watched a lot of families get taken care of over the past couple of years president elect trump asked South Carolina governor nikki haley to be his ambassador to the United Nations and shes accepted n. The daughter of immigrants is considered a rising star the Republican Party and she would be the first woman appointed to trumps next. Are new ambassador to the United Nationshe is living proof of promise in america. For anyone that says you cant get anything done at the un, they need to know theres a new sheriff in town. Theres a new us un you will see a change the way we do business for those that dont have our back we are taking names. For too long the Human Rights Council of in a protector of human rights abusers. If for any reason north korea attacks the United States or our allies the us will respond period. She is so tough and she is so consistent and you just know youre not going to move her. Americans said we want our embassy in the capitalal and tht capital is jerusalem. America will put our embassy in jerusalemer. Thats what the American People want us to do and is the rating to dupe do. What we witnessed today is the Security Council is an insult. It wont be forgotten. Standing her ground un ambassadorenen making it clear. I will not shut up, rather i will respectfully imply the truth. Haley showed us what Foreign Policy looked like with a spine. You know, i dont think its a swagger. I think its passion im passionate about defending the United States. She says the worlds respect in the states again. I didnt know that i would be elected into the legislature. I took its know that i would be governor. I certainly never thought i would be the un ambassador. Even though im a private citizen now, i know i am too young to stop fighting. Ng [applause]. [cheers and applause] good evening. Welcome, everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone, for joining us tonight. We will have a wonderful discussion with Ambassador Nikki Haley. Can we say thank you toou her oe more time, please . Thank you. Thank you. President , thank you very much. Thank you for being here as well. We are going to have a lovely discussion this evening with ambassador hayley and we will start with about 45 minutes of questions and those are questions i will ask you, ambassador and then we will move on to about 15 minutes of questions from the audience, so ambassador, would you like to start with some remarks c . First of all, it is great to be at gw, i have to tell you. President , thank you for hosting us tonight and allowing us to be here. Sj, you are rockstar and we are excited to watch anything you do i was here on campus because our son is looking to come to gw next falle , so we will see if that happens. There is a bit of an application process that we have to go through first, but having said that thank you for having us. Seriously, i know i am here, but how cool is it to have the first female combat veteran in the senate here with us . Joni ernst. [cheers and applause] you were so nice to do this and sere just going to have a fun conversation and hang out for a bit, so that sounds great. When the folks from the ambassadors office called and my staff reached out to me and said you know, would you like to in the minute they said nikki i was like as. I didnt even know it was, so with that, ambassador, we are Getting Started and im going to take us back a bit in history because a lot of folks maybe dont know about your background or how you grew up, so we will start there because i think it really sets the stage for the wonderful years yet to calm and you really describe your american story and how you didnt quite fit in as the girl growing up in the south and what was that experience like for you growing up as the daughter, we all know, of indian immigrants w and you were living in rural South Carolina. We lived in a small town called van berg, South Carolina. We were the only indian family in that town. We were not wide enough to be white or black enough to be black. My father wore a turban and he still does to this day. My mother wore a sorry they did not not know what we were, we were or why we were there and i remember being on the playground coming home after being teased and my mom would say your job is not to show people how you are differentou. Your job is to show people how you are similar and its amazing how that lesson i learned on the playground played out in my life in the corporate world as a legislator, as governor, as ambassador because when you are faced with a challenge, if you first talk about what you agree on first, people let their guard down and then you are more likely to get to a solution by pushing through that challengee, so little did i know it turned out to be a great lesson along the way. What a great lesson on your mother is wise beyond her yearsr yes, she tells me that every day. Of course she does. Shes a great mom. Okay, so some folks may not realize that before you were Ambassador Nikki Haley and before you were governor nikki haley, you actually served in the legislature. Is that correct . I did. Whats interesting is my mom started a business from scratch and a few years into her business her accountant was going to leave and she needed to train someone and finally a few days before she left she said im getting concerned, we dont have someone to train and i happen to be walking by and my mom grabbed my arm and said train her, she can do it. She said but shes 13 and she said s train her, she will do i. So, at 13 i was balancing the bank account, writing out the checks, making sure we were doing bank despises deposits, the whole bit and it wasnt until i got to college that i realized that was not normal. Now i totally realize that was child labor, but through that process i developed a love of numbers and the fact that numbers tell a story and every problem can be fixed by moving the numbers around. D. Ended up graduating with a degree in accounting from Clemson University go tigers. Then i went on to the corporate world and got tired of working for the guys down the hall, came back home to the Family Business and one day i was sitting there complaining again and my mom was there and i was complaining out how hard it was to make a dollar and how easy it was for government to take it and my mom said quit complaining about it, do something about it. I did not know you were supposed to run against a 30 year incumbent in a primary. Eight truly did. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. Was not back in. College that ws in politics, that wasnt me, so once i realized what i had got myself into the only option was to win, so my husband was in the the backseaty kids and he was the longestserving legislator at that time in the state of South Carolina and i would knock on doors and not sai anything disparaging about him. I would say we appreciate what mr. Kuhn has done all of these years, but i think i can do Something Different and i also believe talked about me. I did talk about him and was fortunate enough to get elected. Then, fastforward a little bit, im in the legislature a few years and in South Carolina whenever they were passing legislation it was done by a voice vote your faber . All opposed . One day there was a piece of legislation that one across the desk that gave legislators pay raises. All in favor . All opposed, silence. To this day you cannot find one legislator that said they voted themselves a pay raisegi and i t really upset and went to the speaker of the house and i said this is why people dont trust us in the end of the next day i filed a bill that saidd anything important enough to be debated on the floor of the house where the senateho is important enough to have a vote on the record. The speaker called me and and said put the bill away. We dont need to have it. We will decide what the public needs to see and what they dont i remember going home that night and a talking to my husband saying n, if i can even get legislative of votes on the record what my doing here and he said then go fight. So, i went across the state of South Carolina and said did you know of all the bills passed int the house only 8 were on the record . Did you know about the bills passed in the senate only 1 was on the record . If you didnt know how your house member voted, 92 of the m time if you did know how your sender voted 9090 99 of the time, how did you know who to vote for when you got to the polls and the people of South Carolina were shockeds. To it all in perspective, my first year in office i was chairman of the freshman class and second year i was majority whip, third year i was put on a powerful Business Committee and fourth euros subcommittee chair a banking. Of the year and would have put bill away they stripped me of everything. I could go to the well. No one would hear a bill. I could try to get supporthe, couldnt get it, so i h ran for governor. [laughter] and you one. [applause]. Am proud to say one of the first bills we signed into law is now a South Carolina any piece of legislation that is debated on the floor of the house or the senate has to have a vote on the record and we took a step further and they have to show their vote on the record o every section of the budget as well. Very inspiring. [applause]. I love it. I love the transparency. So, this next question, folks, and this is a hard one. You have had such an inspirational life, nikki. Im going to go back to probably some very hard dark days. Days that you had asth governorf the beautiful state of South Carolina and many of you will know what im referencing, but out of despair can come inspiration and true leadership and so this next question, ambassador, you talk about the tragic killing of nine innocent at that Emmanuel African Episcopal Church in 2015 and during that time bringing the flag down of the confederate [inaudible] can you tell us a little bit about that time and how that incident affected the people in the state of South Carolina and then as well, if you can,ca what did you do to bring those of citizens together to reunite everyone . Well, and my heart goes out to the community in california that had the shooting today, i mean, with Something Like that happens, its not just the people in the room that are affected. Its the entire community affected, and on that night we had 12 people who did what so many people in South Carolina do on every wednesday night. They went to bible study, but on this night someone else showed up. She didnt look like them. He didnt sound like them and he didnt act like them. They didnt call the cops. They didnt throw him out. Instead, o they pulled up a char and they prayed with him for an hour and when they bowed their head in that last prayer he began to shoot. These were people she had lost her daughter two years prior to Breast Cancer and she had a broken heart, but she would go around the Mother Emmanuel Church cleaning the church and she was saying, one day at a time sweet jesus, thats all i ask of you straight to do every day what i to do. Ou our august Just Graduated College and was so excited about his life, but on that he stood in front of his 87year old great aunt susie and looked at the killer and said you dont have to do thisd , we mean no hm to you or it was people like his life was beat writer than necessary. Thats who these people were. They were not famous. A lot at people did not know them, but they loved their families, they loved their church in their community and when that happened it brought South Carolina to our knees. Was the first time we had had a shooting in a religious place and all he wanted to do was to protect the states because the National Media came in strong and they wanted to define it, talk about it and immediately debatess racism. They wanted to debate gun control. They wanted to debate the death penaltyth, you name it they were talking about it and i remember strongarming them back saying we are not going to do this spirit are going to give the time to the families are good there will be a time and place when we have those discussions, but not now. The next day the killer comes out with a manifesto and hes holding up the Confederate Flag. Now, the Confederate Flag flew in front of the statehouse in South Carolina. It used to be on the top of the dome and in the compromised in 2000, and he came in front of the statehouse. When he did that, we have a lot of people in South Carolina whoa have a Great Respect for the Confederate Flag, not out of reasons of hay, but out of the fact that its service and their handset stirs and sacrifice, that was the way they looked at it and then you had obviously the small minority that saw it for what it was, but he hijacked what that was. Take it a step further and go another day or two days after that and it was the first time the killer was going to be in the courthouse facing the judge and the families showed up unprompted, unplanned and one by one stood in front of the killer and for gave him. Thats forgiveness was so thoverwhelming that we didnt he protests. We had vigils. We didnt have violence, we had hugs and we went through a toss a few weeks there where we had to debate wheree that confedere flag needed to go and to the good people of South Carolina stepped up and the flag was moved to the museum and the people of South Carolina show the entire world what it means to get through a tragedy. [applause]. Out of despair there comes inspiration. I just want to thank thehe peope of South Carolina with your leadership, ambassador, for showing us how we get through those difficult times by sharing love with one another and not hatred and not violence, but love and forgiveness. Thank you for that. We are going to move ahead a little bit and talk about the next step from being governor to the great state of South Carolina and other like you to tell the audience a little bit you were offered the position to be the un ambassador and was it a difficult decision for you to make and what we really want to know also with what were those conversations like with President Donald Trump when he was asking you to take on this momentous position . Its interesting. I actually knew the president if you need years prior. After i won the primary for governor, the first time i received this envelope with this great gold trim and its had a checking it and there was a note that said you are a winner and a so i talked to to him than and we stayed in contact over the years. Then we had a republican primary was 60 people on the stage, a lot of talent on the stage and i put my backing on another candidate and it was around that time where he sent out a tweet that said, nikki haley is an embarrassment to South Carolina. In which i responded in a tweet, bless your hearts. [laughter] but, we really did have a respect for each other. I knew that if you kicked him he would holler and he knew if you push me i push back. Fast ford, he was the primary and i supported him in the general and i get a call from his new ch