Former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is releasing all of her delegates to next week’s Republican National Convention and urging them to support former President Trump.

‘The nominating convention is a time for Republican unity,’ Haley said in a statement on Tuesday. ‘I encourage my delegates to support Donald Trump next week in Milwaukee.’

Haley, who was the final challenger against Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination before ending her White House bid four months ago, charged in her statement that ‘Joe Biden is not competent to serve a second term and Kamala Harris would be a disaster for America.’

‘We need a president who will hold our enemies to account, secure our border, cut our debt, and get our economy back on track,’ she urged.

Haley launched her presidential campaign in February of last year, becoming the first major candidate to challenge Trump, who had announced his candidacy three months earlier. She was the final rival to Trump, battling the former president in a contentious two-candidate showdown from the New Hampshire primary in late January through Super Tuesday in early March.

Haley announced that she was suspending her White House campaign on March 6, the day after Trump swept 14 of 15 GOP nominating contests on Super Tuesday.

As she departed the race, Haley made it clear that she intended to keep speaking out. And Haley continued to grab up to 20% of the vote in Republican presidential primaries in the months after she dropped out.

In late May, in her first public comments since announcing the end of her 2024 campaign, Haley said she would vote for Trump.

‘Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I have made that clear many, many times. But Biden has been a catastrophe. So, I will be voting for Trump,’ Haley said.

Haley won a total of 97 delegates during the Republican presidential primaries.

Haley is not planning on attending next week’s convention in Milwaukee, aides told Fox News.

‘She was not invited, and she’s fine with that,’ Haley aide Chaney Denton said. ‘Trump deserves the convention he wants. She’s made it clear she’s voting for him and wishes him the best.’

Word of Haley’s move on Tuesday was first reported by Politico.

I have always liked U.S. Sen. Tim Scott. I’ve met him a few times and we had a great time when he came to tour the construction site for my Leadership and Economic Opportunity Center on the South Side of Chicago. 

We have much in common – we both descend from that horrible America legacy of slavery, we’re country boys at heart born to single mothers, we’ve endured racism, and we live out in the open as Black conservatives.

But that’s not why I’ve grown to admire Tim Scott over the years – admiration can only come with the test of time. 

What I admire in him is neither grand nor sensational and that should surprise no one since Scott is a rather humble and disciplined man. He’s a worker, a doer and a believer. What I admire in the man is something that is deeply personal to me: he never uses his Black skin to his advantage.

This may seem insignificant to some of you or obvious to others – after all, we should live Martin Luther King’s dream where we are judged by not our skins but by our characters. But we have profoundly betrayed that dream.

We have all become complicit in exploiting our skins for the cheap thrill of power. I’ve seen Blacks do it all my life. And, in more recent years, I’ve seen Whites embrace their skins under the illusion it will help them fight these tribal wars.

But there is no mistaking that Blacks have been tempted to exploit their skin color for power or gains of some sort. It’s everywhere. Check the Black box and doors open. Cry racism on the job and settlements will likely come your way. And on.

As someone with Black skin, I always know that card is in the back of my head along with the temptation to play it. But I’ve resisted doing so because I know I’m far more than my skin.

I suspect the senator was raised in a manner similar to my upbringing. Be a man. Man up. Believe in yourself. I believe that is why throughout America’s deep dive off the cliff into angry tribalism, I’ve seen Scott conduct himself as a human first. Weaker people who’ve endured what he’s endured in his life would have fallen for the temptation of race.

When Scott was only 7 years old, he lived in a bedroom in his grandparents’ house along with his mother and an older brother. His father, a Vietnam vet, was not in the picture. His mother worked from dawn to 11 p.m. most nights as a nurse. It was Scott’s grandfather, a man who one picked cotton for 50 cents a day, who became his primary influence.

He would tell Scott, who was often teased as a boy, that he could be more than the circumstances he was born into. In the garden, Scott’s grandfather told him that the seed was of far more importance than the soil – ‘Given enough time, a seed will find its way through the hardest concrete.’

I tell that line to the kids in my neighborhood. They may not be country boys like Scott, but that message stays with them. Then I often tell my kids that Scott was a poor student and failed classes. He had to go to summer school and make them up. While on breaks between classes, he would visit the nearby Chick-fil-A and order what he could afford: waffle fries and water.

Yes, the future United States senator was that poor. But here’s the thing: Tim Scott kept moving. He didn’t have much fuel in his body or two nickels to rub together in his pockets, but he kept moving.

Then one day, the owner of Chick-fil-A took notice of Scott and started talking to him. They eventually became friends and the man told Scott about the business principles he used to succeed. These principles were Scott’s very first introduction to conservatism and I remember him saying, ‘I could think my way out of poverty.’

That’s gold right there. When I tell my kids that line, I’m putting agency, responsibility, accountability right into their hands. I may be showing them the way but I’m putting their fate into their hands.

I say all of this about his upbringing because I believe that is what grounded him and allowed him to believe in himself. That’s what is missing from so many kids today, that basic belief in themselves to go out, challenge the world, and make something of themselves.

Because guess what? When Scott started to go out into the world, make something of himself by running for student body president at his high school, he faced racism for his conservative beliefs, often from Blacks. Then at college, from Whites.

But Scott never lowered himself down to their level and played the race card. He always responded with his humanity, and that is the lesson I preach to my kids at every possible opportunity. And, personally, I know how hard it is to walk this unorthodox but true path and I feel less lonely when I look to Scott’s example.

Lastly, I tell my kids the reason that Scott has succeeded so high in life is because he believes in something higher and bigger than himself.

Too many Americans have lowered themselves into believing in a tribal identity of some immutable characteristics and the politics that come along with it. But not Tim Scott. He believes in Jesus and says, ‘My life is worthless without Jesus Christ.’ 

It is this belief, along with the belief in the power of our souls to be anything that we dream of being, that keeps King’s dream for all of us from dying.

The American vice presidency is one of this country’s most enigmatic roles.   

As stated in the Constitution, the vice president oversees the Senate and assumes the duties of the president in his absence.  

These two seemingly vague and opaque roles in the Constitution leave each modern American president to determine how they want their vice president to serve in their administration.  

During this election cycle, defining service seems even more complicated for the Biden administration as it fights to fulfill President Joe Biden’s promise to two of his key constituencies: women and African Americans.  

With five months until the election, Vice President Kamala Harris may be instrumental in defining her role, potentially becoming the secret ingredient for a campaign facing tied poll numbers and a disillusioned electorate.  

Harris is the first woman, African American and Asian American to do so. For her political critics, this has become the core message of the relentless attacks against her. For key members of the Biden coalition, it has become the foundation of demands that she be more visible.  

Journalist and Harris biographer Dr. Nii-Quartelai Quartey believes these demands and critiques are unfounded and unrealistic.  

‘Like many historic firsts, folks have projected unrealistic expectations onto Vice President Harris, yet her small and scrappy staff has managed to outmaneuver her detractors by going deep on a handful of issues while dutifully being the governing partner this president said he wanted,’ said Quartey, whose forthcoming book ‘Kamala, The Motherland, and Me,’ chronicles the vice president’s historic trip to Ghana, Tanzania and Zambia. 

In the background of all this news and a gridlocked Capitol Hill, the vice president works feverishly to effect change with her influence, the bully pulpit and the power to convene.  

During a recent interview with talk show host Sherri Shepherd, Harris talked about one of those issues, maternal health. With an unusually high maternal mortality rate, maternity departments shutting down across America and access to high-quality maternal and birthing care for urban and rural families at risk, Harris is both raising awareness and pushing state governors to do more.  

‘When I became vice president … only three states in our nation had extended postpartum coverage from two months to 12 months – only three states,’ Harris told Shepherd. ‘I then issued a challenge to all of these states: Extend postpartum care to 12 months. As of today, 46 states have signed on.’ 

And with more than 5.6 million women living in counties with no or limited access to maternity care services in 2023 and a 14% increase in pregnancy-related deaths in 2020, the vice president’s work affects everyday people, even though it might not make the local news, cable primetime or daily papers.  

Unlike most contemporary vice presidents, Harris didn’t inherit money from her Indian-born mother or Jamaican-born father. She inherited social conscience, self-reliance, empowerment and hard work that can only come from being part of the Indo-Caribbean American immigrant experience. 

Born in Oakland to two immigrants pursuing the highest of higher education, Harris’s first-generation upbringing likely placed her in an environment where working hard, learning harder and achieving were prerequisites to unlocking the adoration of parents born outside America’s borders.  

With a Biology Ph.D. for a mother and an economist for a father, Harris’s childhood, like most immigrant households in the late ’60s and beyond, was likely framed with the understanding that the American Dream was afforded to a fortunate few folks in other countries.  

This Indo-Caribbean immigrant upbringing is likely what keeps Harris unfazed and focused on reshaping policy in the areas she can, despite the lack of adequate recognition.  

Case in point: the Biden administration’s foreign policy approach toward the continent of Africa and the Caribbean.  

As she battles decades of Chinese foreign investment and influence peddling on the continent of Africa, Harris endeavors to change African leaders’ perception of an outdated, healthcare infrastructure-centered American foreign policy. 

During Harris’ visit to the continent last year, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema defined his relationship with the United States by saying, ‘When I’m in Washington, I’m not against Beijing. Equally, when I’m in Bejing, I’m not against Washington.’  

This perception across the continent would likely change by the time Harris boarded Air Force Two on her return to the United States in April 2023. Her trip delivered $100 million in new governance, security and development assistance for Benin, Togo, Ghana, Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire.  

In the background of all this news and a gridlocked Capitol Hill, the vice president works feverishly to effect change with her influence, the bully pulpit and the power to convene.  

A move that, for Quartey, exemplifies her vision and under-reported success.  

‘In Africa, last Spring, I witnessed firsthand the vice president’s noticeable influence in international affairs,’ he said. ‘As the vice president travels to Switzerland this weekend for the Summit on Peace in Ukraine, I’m reminded of her notably impressive application of social, economic and national security-related opportunities and challenges abroad but sadly under-appreciated at home.’  

Since last spring, Harris has been instrumental in increasing private investment on the continent, expanding access to capital for young African entrepreneurs and internet access. These moves will strengthen Americans’ posture on the continent, which has the largest youth population globally.  

Beyond maternal health and foreign policy, Harris has also been a leading voice on ending America’s scourge of gun violence.  Recently, she teamed up with Quavo of the Migos to aid in the reframing of his nephew Takeoff’s tragic death and bring new players to the table to ensure that the United States curbs gun violence.  

While all three examples are abbreviated, they speak to a vice president writing her job description in a polarized political environment that doesn’t applaud success.  

The vague definitions surrounding the role and Harris’ lack of comparison to her predecessors — all previously White men — have placed her in a position where overzealous media and louder-than-normal opponents have prevented the electorate from hearing about and evaluating her successes.  

This regrettable reality should cause pause for all.