On Tuesday’s  Tennessee Star Report Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast live Tuesday morning on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 am to 8:00 am – Leahy welcomed One America News Network’s own investigative reporter, Neil McCabe to discuss the revelations of in former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley’s new book, With All Due Respect.
Haley will be in Nashville this coming Monday, November 18, for a book signing at 6:30 p.m. at Woodmont Christian Church in Nashville, sponsored by Parnassus Books.
During the show, the men went through some excerpts of the book and dissected some of her comments about Tillerson and Kelly. McCabe went on to suspect that Haley may be in the running for taking over the Vice Presidency in a strategic move that would ultimately result in a future run as President after Trump.
Leahy: In studio is Ben Cunningham and on the line with me, our good friend and long-time colleague at Breitbart and now with One America News Network Washington Correspondent, Neil McCabe. Good morning, Neil.
McCabe: Good morning. We’re very excited this morning. The public hearings are upon us.
Leahy: Oh boy. It was so upsetting, coming tomorrow ‘shampeachment’ continues. It feels like a late-night, order your ‘shampeachment’ special now. (Cunningham laughs)
McCabe: Of course then there’s the Nikki Haley book.
Leahy: Wow. I’ve been reading experts of it. I bought it on Kindle this morning and I’ve been reading it on air. It looks like she has placed this meeting in the White House June of 2017 where she had this conversation just between herself, Rex Tillerson and John Kelly.
And basically she’s saying that ‘they’ were telling her that they wanted her to join them in saving the country from Donald Trump. What do you make of these allegations?
McCabe: This is completely consistent with what we’ve seen from or heard from other administration officials. You would look at say, General Dunford, General Kelly, and McMaster. Those three generals have sort of an agreement that if one of them was fired, they would all resign at the same time.
Or what they call in bureaucracy circles, a suicide pact. But the whole idea that the country needed to be protected from the President, what was really happening and what is really happening now and what will continue to happen for the next five and a half years is that President Donald Trump and more importantly his 60 million-plus voters want to attack the status quo.
The people who have been in charge of this country have been running for themselves and not for the people that they promised they would help. And so, yeah, there’s a lot of things that have to be attacked structurally. And there’s a lot of people who have been living very very well off of this system as it is.
And they don’t want to let it go. Remember, the federal government is a four trillion dollar a year business and it is reasonable to think that people want a piece of that. And if someone tries to take it away they’re going to go after them. Look at what they say about Trump right?
So much what they go after Trump about has absolutely nothing to do about policy. ‘Oh, he’s rude. He doesn’t use the right forms. (Leahy laughs) It’s his tone. Or he’s so vulgar. He’s so bridge and tunnel. Why can’t he be hip and polite like us?’ But believe me, if he was for immigration. If he was for abortion. If he was for gun confiscation, there would be no impeachment hearing on capitol hill.
Leahy: So this meeting in which Nikki Haley claims in her new book With All Due Respect which we are reading right now literally on the air, took place in the White House. The three of them met in June of 2017. The issue was funding for the United Nations Refugee Works Agency which the President didn’t want to do.
But Tillerson wanted to do. And after that meeting, here’s what she wrote. ‘Kelly and Tillerson confided in me that when they resisted the President they weren’t being insubordinate. They were trying to save the country. It was their decisions, not the President’s that were in the best interest of America.
They said, ‘The President didn’t know what he was doing.’ Here’s a quote from Kelly according to Nikki Haley. ‘I don’t even think he realizes what the legislative branch is and yet members of Congress are elected by the people,’ Kelly said. But it wasn’t the legislative branch these men wanted to defer to, it was them.’ How about that?
McCabe: I think it’s absolutely correct. And let’s not forget that we’re not sure Mike Pence is really going to be on the ticket for 2020 with the President.
Leahy: Really? Why are we not sure? I watch Mike Pence and he is a very dutiful, doing his job Vice President. He is boring, boring. A great guy. But boring.
McCabe: A wonderful man.
Leahy: Yes. Why would he not be on the ticket?
McCabe: Well, I mean there’s a lot of people that believe Nikki Haley should be on that ticket.
Leahy: Is Nikki Haley one of those people?
McCabe: Nikki Haley certainly wouldn’t turn it down. (Leahy chuckles) And I’ll tell you this. If something, unfortunately, happens that Donald Trump was no longer the president of this republic and Mike Pence said, ‘Hey Nikki, you want to be on the ticket with me?” Nikki Haley would say, and it’s my information that she’s already said, ‘I would love to be on the ticket with you Mike. You can keep your job.’ (Leahy and Cunningham laugh)
Leahy: Really? Are you serious? Is that what you heard?
McCabe: That’s what I heard.
Leahy: So Nikki Haley would run for President and keep him for Vice President. She’s very ambitious. She playing big big, hardball politics with this.
McCabe: Oh yeah.
Leahy: In her book, she went on to say this. ‘Secretary Tillerson went ahead and acted on his own without the permission of the president to authorize a 60 million dollar donation to the United Nations Refugee Works Agency, half the 120 million that had previously been pledged.
Again, that looks to me she’s providing some evidence. I think we can back that up. That Tillerson acted on his own without permission from the President. I mean, generally, conservatives always wondered why did the President pick Tillerson right?
McCabe: Trump came in thinking he could run a coalition government. Two or three days after the election he said I don’t want to prosecute Clinton she’s been through enough. Then he reached out to the establishment and certainly Paul Ryan had tremendous influence into who was staffed in the White House and in the administration. Not the least of which chief of staff Reince Priebus.
And Tillerson was seen as the administration choice because, Condoleeza Rice and Bob Gates said, ‘Mr. President, make him secretary of state.’ And then when Tillerson was in the middle of this confirmation fight and the great Marco Rubio was telling everybody that Tillerson was a tool of Putin. Are you old enough Mike to remember when Tillerson was proof of Russian collusion?
Leahy: Yeah, right.
McCabe: And so you know, Trump instead of cutting loose Tillerson stuck with him a remarkably long time. Trump would say something in the morning and Tillerson would undercut him, undermine him, would leak him. Would criticize him in the afternoon. Trump stayed with him an awfully long time.
Leahy: So my question for Nikki Haley would be. By the way in this book, she hated Rex Tillerson and Rex Tillerson hated her. That seemed to be obvious. There are innumerable criticisms of Tillerson. The meeting where she was recruited to resist the President according to her story by Tillerson and John Kelly took place in June of 2017. What I don’t know is: did she immediately tell the President that Tillerson and Kelly…?
McCabe: I doubt it.
Leahy: You doubt that.
McCabe: Nikki Haley was not sure until say a few months ago how she was going to play this.
Leahy: Ahhh. Your guess is she didn’t kind of start attacking Tillerson and Kelly till well after she was out of the administration.
McCabe: And Nikki Haley, after she left the administration continues to talk to Trump. And she has been lobbying to replace Pence and her people have been lobbying for her to replace Pence.
Leahy: Really? Politically, what benefit does the President get by dumping Pence and putting Nikki Haley in? How does that benefit him politically?
McCabe: It benefits him politically tactically and strategically. Tactically going into 2020, there’s fire. There’s enthusiasm. She’s engaging. She’s smart. She’s a conservative who can go into liberal audiences and disarm them and take them down. And Pence is not that comfortable.
Leahy: He’s a nice guy but he’s not going to be punching?
McCabe: Right.
Leahy: Yeah.
McCabe: Strategically what it does it gives him, people start thinking over the horizons. So, OK, we get Trump for four more years…
Leahy: And then Haley.
McCabe: And then we get eight years of Nikki Haley.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to the Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
