With partnership with politics and prose bookstore. In the George Washington residential distinguished event series. We launched the series last semester to give our students the opportunity from renowned leaders, the individuals who bring dialogue, insight and inspiration to our campus. In the heart of our nations capital, our university is fortunate to be surrounded by the governmental nonprofit and International Agencies and organizations that make decisions that affect each of us every day. Our location allows us to be part of those decisions, it allows her students access to the d. C. Experiential learning opportunities. It allows our faculty to provide rigorous and high quality scholarship and research that informs policymaking and problemsolving. It allows her university to serve as a hub for timely discussion in important and relevant to all of us. Tonight we are pleased to host United States and boxer to the United Nations nikki haley in discussions about her new book with all due respect defending america with grace. Which offers a firsthand perspective on national and International Matters as well as behindthescenes account of her tenure and the trump administration. Ambassador haley will be joined by moderator in the United States senator jodi ernst who into thousand 14 was elected as the first woman to serve in federal Elective Office in the state of iowa. Please enjoy this evenings discussion and thank you for being here. [applause] when South Carolina nikki haley was born she became the first United States governor. Governor nikki haley said its a single largest Economic Investment in the state more than 200 year history. Of full manufacture right here in charleston county. This is a great day in South Carolina, 560 million invested, 1700 jobs in chester county. [applause] the best part of what is happened is watching all of these jobs not just going to cities but going to rural South Carolina. If you can give a percentage off you take care of a family and we launched a lot of families get taken care of over the past couple of years. Trump say has elected nikki y to be his abbasid or to the United Nations. She is considered a rising star in the Republican Party, she would be the first woman appointed to his cabinet. Our new ambassador is living proof of promise of america. For anyone who said you cannot get anything done at the un, they need to know there is a new sheriff in town. There is a new u. S. Un you will see the way we that we do business, those that dont take her back were taking names. They been a protector of human rights abusers and political violence. If for any reason north korea attacks the United States or our allies the u. S. Will respond. She is so consistent. You just know you are not going to move her. American said we want our embassy in the capital and that is jerusalem. We will put our embassy in jerusalem and thats what the American People want us to do and its a right thing to do. No vote will make any difference on that. What we witnessed here today at Security Council is an insult. It will not be forgotten. The un Ambassador Nikki Haley making it clear. I will not shut up rather i will respectfully speak the truth. She shows us what american policy looks like. Some people say there is a cultural. I think his passion im passionate about the United States. With nikki haley respecting the United States again. I did not know that i would be elected into legislator and i did not know i would be govern governor, i never thought id be the un ambassador. Even though im a private citizen now, i know i am too young to stop fighting. [cheering] welcome everyone, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for joining us tonight, we will have a wonderful discussion with the Ambassador Nikki Haley, can we say thank you to her one more time. [cheering] [applause] thank you so much. Thank you very much, thank you for being here as well, we will have a lovely discussion this evening with Ambassador Haley and we will start with 45 minutes of questions and those are questions i will ask you and then we will move on to about 15 minutes from questions from the audience. Would you like to start with remark. First of all its great to be at gw. I have to tell you thank you for hosting tonight and allowing us to be here. Youre a rockstar and were excited to watch everything that you do. I was hearing campus because her son is looking to come here next fall and we will see if that happens. There is a bit of an application conflict 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. [applause] you are so nice to do this and were going to have a phone conversation and hang out for a bit. That sounds great. When the folks from the ambassadors office have called in my staff reached out to me and said would you like to in the minute they said nikki i said yes, i did not even know what it was but i was excited. With that we are going to go ahead and get started. Im going to take us back a little bit in history because a lot of folks dont know about your background or how you grew up so we will start there because it sets the stage for the wonderful years yet to come and you really describe your american story and how you did not quite fit in as a girl growing up in the south and what was that experience like for you growing up as the daughter we know of indian immigrants and you are living in rura rural soh carolina. We lived in a small town in South Carolina we were the only indian family in that town, we were not wide enough to be whi e and not black enough to be black, my father wore a turban and he still does to this day, they did not know who we were or what 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 youre different, your job is to show people how you are similar. It is amazing how the lesson i learned on the playground played out in the corporate world as a legislator as governor as ambassador because when you face to the 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 the challenge. Little did i know that turned out to be a great lesson. What a great lesson and your mother is wise. She tells me that every day. Of course she does. She is a great mom. So some folks might not realize that before you are Ambassador Nikki Haley and before you were governor nikki haley you actually served in the legislator, is that correct. I did. What is interesting, 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 and she said but shes 13. [laughter] and she said train her, she will do it. So at 13 i was balancing the bank account in writing out the checks, making sure we were doing bank deposits, it was not until i got to college that i realized that was not normal. Now i totally realize that was child labor. But through the process i developed love for numbers and that numbers tell a story and every problem can be fixed by moving the numbers around. In and of graduating with a degree in accounting from clemson university. Go tigers. And i went on to the corporate world and i got tired of working for the guys down the hall and it came back into the Family Business and one day i was sitting there complaining at how hard it was to make a dollar and how easy it was for government to take it. And my mom said quit complaining, do something about it. I did not know you werent supposed to run against the thirtyyear in a primary. Ignorance is bliss. I was not that kidding college and politics i never knew to go to student government, that was not me. Once i got into and realized what i got myself into the only option was to win. I was in the passenger seat and the kids were in the back and we started knocking on doors. He was the longest serving legislator at that time in the state of North Carolina and i would knock on doors and not say anything disparaging about him. We appreciate what he has done all these years but we think i can do something different. I always talked about me i did not talk about him. I was fortunate enough to get elected. And fastforward a little bit. Im in the legislator a few years and in South Carolina whenever they were passing legislation it was done in all in favor, say i and all opposing a. One day there was a piece of legislation that went across the desk they gave legislators pay raises. All in favor say i, all opposed say silence. But to this day you cannot find one legislator the said they voted most cells a pay raise. In a really upset and went to the speaker of the house and said this is why people dont trust us. In the next day i filed a bill this it anything important enough to be on the house or the senate is important enough to have a vote on the record. The speaker called me in and he said put the bill away, we dont need to have it, we will decide what the public need to see and what they dont. I remember going home and talking to my husband insane, if i cannot get legislative votes on the record what am i doing here. And he said go fight. So i went across the state of South Carolina that all the bills passed in the house only 8 were on the record, did you know of all the house senate, only 1 is on the record. So if you did not know how your house member voted 92 of the time if you did not know how your senator voted 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 shocked. To put it all into perspective my first year in office i was chairman of the freshman class in my second year and third year a powerful business committee, my fourth year i was chair banking. The year i would not put the bill away they strip me of everything. I could go to the well and nobody would hear a bill, could get support and it could not get it. So iran for governor. [laughter] and he won and im proud to say that one of the first bills that we signed into law is now in South Carolina and any piece of legislation debated on the floor of the house or senate has to have a vote and we took a step further and they have to show their vote on the record of every section of the budget as well. Very inspiring. [applause] i love it, i love the transparency. This next question, this is a hard one and you have had an inspirational life, nikki, im going to go back to some very hard dark days that you had as governor of the beatable state of South Carolina and many of you will know what im referencing but out of this can come inspiration and true leadership so this next question, ambassador you talk about the tragic killing of nine innocent in the immanuel African Church attorney 15. During your time as governor which led to the decision to bring the Confederate Flag down from the ground of the state capital, kenya tulsa little bit about the time and how the incident affected the people in the state of South Carolina and as well and what did you do to bring the together to reunite everyone. And my heart goes out to the community in california has a shooting today, when Something Like that happens it is not just the people in the room that are affected. If the entire community that is affected. On the night we have 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. He did not look like them, he did not sound like them and he did not act like them. They did not call the cops, they did not throw him out, instead they pulled up a chair and they. With him for an hour. And when they bow their heads in the last prayer he began to shoot. These are people, she had lost her daughter two years prior to Breast Cancer and had a broken heart. But she would go around the church cleaning the church and she would say one day at a time sweet jesus, thats all i ask of you. Give me the strength to do every day what i have to do. Our youngest victim sanders Just Graduated College was so excited about his life but on that night he stood in front of the 87yearold great aunt susie and looked at the killer and said you dont have to do this, we mean no harm to you. Or people like cynthia hurd whose life motto was simply to be kinder than necessary. That is who these people were. They were not famous, a lot of people did not know them but they loved their family, their church and their community. And when that happened it brought South Carolina to her knees. It was the first time we had a shooting in a religious place and i remember all i wanted to do was to protect the state because the National Media came in strong and they wanted to define it, talk about it, immediately debate racism, they wanted to debate guncontrol, the death penalty, you name it they were talking about it. I remember strongarming the vaccine we are not going to do this, we will give the time to the families and go through the funerals and there will be a time and place where will have the discussions but it is not now. The next day the killer comes out with a manifesto and hes holding up the Confederate Flag. The Confederate Flag flew in front of the statehouse in South Carolina and used to be on top of the dome and they compromised in 2000 of the statehouse. When he did that we have a lot of people who have a Great Respect for the federal flag not out of hate but its service in hand sisters and sacrifice. And then you had obviously the small minority that solid for what it was. But hed 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 and facing the judge. In the family showed up unprompted, unplanned and one by one stood in front of the killer and forgave him and that forgiveness was so overwhelming that we did not have protest we had visuals. We did not have violence we had hugs. And we went through a tough few weeks where we had to debate where the Confederate Flag needed to go. And the good people of South Carolina stepped up and the flag was moved to the museum and the people of South Carolina showed the entire world what it means to get through tragedy. [applause] out of despair there comes inspiration. And i just want to think the people of South Carolina, with the leadership ambassador for showing us how we get through those difficult times when theyre in love with one another and not hatred and nonviolence but love and forgiveness so thank you for that. We will move ahead a little bit and talk about the next step from being governor to the great state of South Carolina and i would like you to tell the audience about when you were offered the position to be the un ambassador and wasnt a difficult decision for you to make and i want to know what were the conversations like with President Donald Trump when he was asking you to take on the position. I actually knew the president a few years prior, after i won the primary for governor the first time, i received the envelope with the great gold trend and there was a note that said you are a winner. [laughter] so i talked to him then and we stayed in contact over the years and then we had a republican primary in 16 people on the stage and i put my backing on another candidate and it was around that time were he sent out a tweet say nikki haley is an embarrassment to South Carolina. [laughter] in which i responded in a tweet flush her heart. [laughter] but we really did have a respect for each other, i knew if he pushed me i was going to push back and fastforward he won the primary and i supported him and i get a call from his chief of staff and he says i need you to come to new york and i said for what and he says the president of elect wants to see you and i said about what. He said secretary of state and i said sec. Of state, im a governor i cannot be secretary of state. And he said he wants to see you we need you to come. So come the next morning and i go into his office and the first thing the president says is a guess your guy did not win. He just cannot help himself. I let them do a little bit and then we had a great conversation and i said im not your person, i said we have a lot going on in the world, w you dont need someone with a learning curve i want to be helpful and supportive and anything i could do to help all be happy to. Later that week he calls again and he says dont say anything i needed to listen. U. S. Ambassador to the