Capital orve university is fortunate to be surrounded by the many governmental nonprofit and International Agencies and organizations that make decisions that affect each of us every day. Our location here allows us to be part of those decisions and allows our students access to the uniquely dc experiential tylearning opportunity and allos our faculty to provide rigorous and highquality scholarships and research and informs policy making and problem solving. It allows our university to serve as a hub for timely discussions that areta important 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 defending america with grit and grace. It offers a firsthand perspective on national and International Matters as well as behind the scenes account of her tenure intr the trump administration. Ambassador haley 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 office from the state of iowa. Please enjoy this evenings discussions and thank you for being here. [applause] in one South Carolina governor nikki haley was torn and she became the sates female govern governor. The results are what i promised the people of South Carolina and what im determined to give. It is the single largest Economic Investment in the state with more than 200 years history smack mercedesbenz fanciful manufacturing right here in charleston county. Its a greaton day in South Carolina. 560 million invested, 1700 jobs right here. Its a great win. The best part of what is happened over the past couple of years is watching all of these jobs, not just go into cities but into rural South Carolina because if you can give a person a job you take care of a family and we watched a lot of families get taken care of over the last couple of years. President elect trump has ace South Carolina governor nikki haley to be a vessel or the United Nations and she has accepted connect the daughter of immigrants is considered a rising star in the public and party. Shes the first woman appointed to trucks cabinet. She is living proof of the promise of america. For anyone that says you cant get anything done at the un, they need to note theres a new. Sheriff in town. There is a new u. S. Un. You will see a new way the way we do business with for those who dont have her back, were taking names. The Human Rights Council has been a protector of abusers and a cesspool of political bias. If for any reason north korea attacks the United States or our allies the u. S. Will respond. She is so tough and so consistent. You just know you will not move her. America said we want our embassy in the capital and that capital is jerusalem. America will put our embassy in jerusalem. That is what the American People want us to do. And it is the right thing to do. No vote in that United Nations will make any difference. What we witnessed here today at theha secured counsel is in [inaudible] it wont be forgotten. Standing her ground, un abbasid art nikki haley making it clear. I will not shut up. Rather, i will respectfully speak hard truth. Some people say theres too much swagger. I dont think its swagger its passion. I amgg very passionate about the United States. People are respecting the United States again because of nikki haley. I did not know i would be elected into the legislator. I did not know i would be governor. I certainly never thought i would be a un ambassador. Even though im a private citizen i know i am too young to stop fighting. [applause] good evening. Welcome everyone. Welcome to gw university. Thank you so much. Thank you 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, please mac . [applause] president leblanc, thank you so much. Sj thank you for being here as well but we will have a lovely discussion this evening with Ambassador Haley and we will start with about 45 minutes of the questions and those are questions that i will be asking you, ambassador, and we will move on to about 15 minutes of questions from the audience. With that, ambassador, would you like to start with remarks . Yes, first of all, its great to be at gw. I have to tell you [cheering and applause] president , thank you for hosting t tonightht and allowing us toe here. Sj you are a rockstar and were excited for every thing. I was here on campus because our son is looking to come to gw next fall so we will see if that happens. [applause] there iss a bit of an applicatin process we have to go through first but having said that thank you for having us but 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 . [cheering and applause] you were so nice to do this and we will just have a fun conversation and hang out for a bit. That sounds great. When the folks from the Ambassador Office called and my staff reached out to me and said would you like to and the minute they said nikki, i i was like y. I did not even know what it was but i was excited to do it. With that ambassador we will go ahead and get started. Im going to take us back a little bit in history because a lot of folks maybe dont know about your background or how you grew up and so we will start there because i think it sets the stage fo the wonderful years yet to come. You really describe your american story and how you did not quite fit in as the girl growing up in the south and what was thatt experience like for yu growing up as the daughter indian immigrants and a you were living in rural South Carolina . We lived in a small town called vanderburgh, South Carolina and the only indian family in that town. We werent t white enough to be white we want black enough to be black and i father wore a turban and he still does to this day but my mother or a sari and they did not w know who we are, whate were or white we were there. I remember being on the playgrounds and coming home after being teased and my mom would always say your job is not to show people how you are different but your job is to show people how you are similar. Its amazing how that lesson i learned on the playground played out in my life in a corporate world and as a legislator and as governor and as ambassador because when youre 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 a solution by pushing the debt challenge but little did i know if that turned out to be a great lesson along the way and what a great lesson. Your mother is wise. Wise beyond her years. Yes, she tells me that every day. [laughter] of course she does but shes a great mom. Some folks might not realize that before you were Ambassador Nikki Haley and before you were governor nikki haley you actually served in the legislator, is that correct . I did bid what is interesting is my mom started a business from scratch m and a few years into her business her account account it was going to leave and she needed to train someone and finally a few days before she left she said look, im getting concerned and 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. C she said but shes 13. [laughter] and she said train her, she will do it. At 13 i was balancing the bank account and writing out the checks, making sure we were doing bank deposits, the whole bit. W it was not until he got to college that wasnt normal. Now i totally realize that was child labor. Through that process i developed a love of numbers and the fact that numbers tell a story in both problem can be fixed by moving the numbers around. I ended up graduating with a degree in accounting from clemson university, go tigers rooted and then went on to the corporate world and got tired of working for the guys down the hall. Came back home to thehe Family Business and one day i was sitting there complaining again my mom was there and i was complaining how hard it was to make a dollar and how easy it was for government to take it. My mom said quit complaining, do something about it. I did not know you were not supposed to run against a 30 year income in the primary. Truly i didnt. Ignorance is bliss and i wasnt that kid in college that was in politics and i never knew to go for Student Government and that wasnt me. Once i got into or once i realized what i had gotten myself into the only option was to win. My husband drove and i was in the passenger seat and the kids were in the backseat and we started knocking on doors and he was the longestserving legislator at that time in the state of South Carolina and i would knock on doors and not say anything disparaging about him. I would say we appreciate what mr. Kuhn has done all these years but we think or i thinkin that i could do something different. I always talked about me. I do not talk about him. Was fortunate enough to get elected. Fastforward a little bit and im in the legislator a few years and in South Carolina when ever they were passing legislation it was done by a voice vote, all in favor say i, all opposed and the eyes have it. One day there was a piece of legislation that went across the desk they gave legislators pay raises. But to this day you cant find one legislator that said they voted themselves a pay raise. I got upset and went to the speaker of the house and said this isis why people dont trust us. The next day i filed a bill that said anything important enough to be debated on the floor of the house or senate is important enough to have a vote on the record. The speaker calledd me in and said put the bill away, we dont need to have it. We will decide what the public needs to see in what they dont. I remember going home that night and talking to my husband and saying if i can even get legislative votes on the record what am i doing here . He said go fight. I went across the state of south aicarolina and said did you know all the bills passed in the house only 8 were on the record. Did you know of all the bills passed and the senate only 1 was on the record . If you do not know how your house member voted 92 of the time you did not know how your senator voted 99 of the time how did you know who to vote for when he w got to the polls and e people of South Carolina were shocked and to put it all into perspective my first year in office i was chairman of the freshman class and my second year i was majority whip and my third year i was put on a powerful Business Committee and my fourth year i was subcommittee chair of banking. The year i would not put the bill away they stripped me of everything. I could go to the well and no one would hear a bill and i could find and get support and i cannot get it. Iran for governor. [laughter] and you one. And proud to say that one of the first bills we signed into law is now in South Carolina and any c piece of legislation debad on the floor of the house or senate has to have a vote on the record and if we took a step further and they have to show their vote on the record on every section of the budget as well. Very inspiring. Yeah, i love the transparency. This next question folks and this is a hard one but really and you have had a such an inspirational life nikki and im going to go back to probably some very hard dark days that you had as governor of the people state of South Carolina and many of you will know what im referencing but out of despair can come inspiration and true leadership. This next question, ambassador, you talk about the tragic killing of nine innocents at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in 2015. During your time as governor which led to the decision to feing the Confederate Flag down from the ground of the state capital can you tell us a little bit about that time and how that incident affected the people and the state of South Carolina and then ass well, if you can, what did you do to bring those citizens together, reunite everyone . And my heart goes out to the community in california that had the shooting today. When Something Like that happens it is not just the people in the room that are affected but its the entire community affected and on that night we had 12 people who did what so many people in South Carolina due on every wednesday night, they went to bible study. But on this night someone else showed up and 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 and they did not throw him out. Instead, they pulled up a chair and prayed with him for one hour. When they bowed their heads and that last prayer he began to shoot. These were people ethel had lost her dog daughter prior to Breast Cancer and had a broken heart. She would go around the mother cmanuel church cleaning the church and she would say [inaudible] give me the strength to do every day what i have to do. Our youngest victim Just Graduated College and was so excited about his life but on that night he stood in front of his 87 yearold great aunt susie and looked at the killer and said you dont have to do this, we mean no harm to you. Or it was people like cynthia whose life motto was simply to be kinder than necessary and that is who these people were. They werent famous and a lot of people did not know them but they loved their families and loved their church and they love their communities. And when that happened it brought South Carolina to our knees. It was the first time we had a shooting in a religious place and i remember all i wanted to doo was to protect the state because the National Media came in strong and they wanted to define it and wanted to talk about it and wanted to immediately debate racism and debate gun control and debate the death penalty, you name it, they were talking about it. I remember strongarming themmb back saying we are not going to do this and we will give the time to the families and we will go through the funerals and there will be a time and place where we have those discussions but it is not now. The next day the killer comes out with a manifesto and he is holding up the Confederate Flag. Now the Confederate Flag flew in front of the statehouse in South Carolina and used to be on top of the dome and then they compromised in 2000 and came right in front of the statehouse. When he did that we have a lot of people in South Carolina who have a Great Respect for the Confederate Flag, not out of reasons of hate but out of the fact that its service in their ancestors and sacrifice and that was the way they looked at it and then you had obviously the small minority that sought for what it was that 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 would be in the courthouse and facing the judge. The families showed up unprompted , unplanned and one by one stood in front of the killer and forgave him. That forgiveness was so overwhelming that we did not have protests but had vigils. We did not have violence but we had hugs. And we went through a tough few weeks theyre are where we had to debate where that Confederate Flag needed to go. 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 to a tragedy. [applause] out of despair that comes inspiration. I just want to thank the people of South Carolina. With your leadership, ambassador, for showing us how we get through those difficult times i sharing love with one another and not hatred and not violence butnd love and forgiveness. And q 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 id like to tell the audience about when you were offered the position to be the un ambassador and wasnt a difficult difficult decision for you to make and what they really want to know is what were those c conversations like with President Donald Trump when he was asking you to take on this momentous position . It is interesting. I knew the president a few years prior and after i won the primary for governor the first time and i received this envelope with this great gold trim and it had a check in it and there was a note that said you are a winner. I had talked to him then and we had stayed in contact over the years and then we had a rebuffing and primary and had 16 people on the stage and 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