By Mick Krever and Devan Cole, CNN

 October 9, 2018

(CNN)Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that President Donald Trump staged a “political rally” at Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s ceremonial swearing-in that “further undermined the image and integrity of the court.”

“What was done last night in the White House was a political rally. It further undermined the image and integrity of the court,” Clinton, Trump’s Democratic 2016 election opponent, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an exclusive interview.

“And that troubles me greatly. It saddens me. Because our judicial system has been viewed as one of the main pillars of our constitutional government. So I don’t know how people are going to react to it. I think, given our divides, it will pretty much fall predictably between those who are for and those who are against,” Clinton said.

“But the President’s been true to form,” she continued. “He has insulted, attacked, demeaned women throughout the campaign — really for many years leading up to the campaign. And he’s continued to do that inside the White House.”

When Trump hosted Kavanaugh and his family at a ceremonial swearing-in at the White House on Monday night, he apologized “on behalf of our nation” to the newly minted justice for the difficult confirmation process.

“On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure,” Trump said. “Those who step forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation. Not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception. What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency and due process.”
Democrats must be tougher, Clinton says

Just days after Democrats lost their bitter fight to keep Kavanaugh off the high court, Clinton told Amanpour that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, thinks that “Democrats have to be tougher.”

“Bill had to be incredibly strong — first to get elected, then to get re-elected and to survive. And it was not easy by any means, obviously. But he really believes that Democrats have to be tougher,” she said, adding that he also thinks the party will “have to stand up to the bullying and intimidation” from Republicans.

Clinton told Amanpour that she thinks that in the future her husband will “have things to say about his own experience and how it applies here.”

The former President has previously been vocal about his views on Trump’s presidency. In June, he said impeachment hearings would have begun if a Democratic president, instead of Trump, were in power and the Russia investigation was as far along as it was at that time. Clinton himself was impeached in 1998 by the House, but the Senate acquitted him, preventing his removal from office.

The former secretary of state also told Amanpour that Democrats need to draw a hard line against Republicans.

“You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” she said. “That’s why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again.”

“But until then, the only thing Republicans seem to recognize is strength,” she said.
CNN’s Veronica Stracqualursi and Dan Merica contributed to this report.

Source: www.bbc.com (TUESDAY 9TH OCTOBER 2018)

US President Donald Trump has accepted the resignation of UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.

He told reporters in the Oval Office that she would be leaving the post at the end of the year after doing “an incredible job”.

Joined by the former South Carolina governor in the Oval Office, he invited her to come back in a different role. “You can have your pick,” he said.

Mrs. Haley was confirmed as US envoy to the UN in January 2017.

The White House revolving door

Mr. Trump said Mrs. Haley had told him six months ago she wanted to take some time off.

Mr. Trump and Mrs. Haley appeared together at the UN General Assembly last month
She told reporters that despite speculation, she was not planning to run for president in 2020 and would be campaigning for Mr. Trump, who has already announced his re-election bid.

“Thank you, Mr. President. It has been an honour of a lifetime,” she said alongside Mr. Trump.

The president said Mrs. Haley “has been very special to me, she has done an incredible job, she is a fantastic person, very importantly, but she is also somebody that gets it”.

“We’ve done a fantastic job together,” he continued. “We’ve solved a lot of problems, and we’re in the process of solving a lot of problems.”

“Hopefully you’ll be coming back at some point, right,” Mr. Trump said. “Maybe a different capacity, you can have your pick.” Mrs. Haley laughed.

Mr. Trump added that he would be naming her replacement in the next two to three weeks.

“She’s made it a very glamorous position, more importantly, a more important position. So we have many people that want to do it and they’re very good people,” he said.

Who is Nikki Haley?

• Nikki Haley, born Nimrata Randhawa to Indian immigrant parents, was raised as a Sikh in Bamberg, South Carolina, later converting to Christianity
• Her first job as a 13-year-old was bookkeeping for her family’s clothing store
• In 2010, she became South Carolina’s first female and first minority governor – and the youngest governor in the country. She was re-elected to the post in 2014, serving until she joined the Trump cabinet in 2016
• Mrs. Haley gained national prominence for her response to a mass shooting in June 2015 at a predominantly African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina when she removed the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds, receiving praise from both sides of the aisle
• Before becoming the US envoy, Mrs. Haley had little foreign policy experience, though she did travel abroad as governor to broker economic deals for South Carolina
• While she eventually did back Mr. Trump, she did not endorse him during the 2016 presidential campaign, instead backing Florida Senator Marco Rubio
• Mrs. Haley is married to Army National Guard Captain Michael Haley, and the couple have two teenage childrenHer exit comes after she served as the temporary president of the UN Security Council for one month.

Mrs. Haley’s Twitter bio has already removed all references to her role as UN ambassador.

In April, she clashed with the White House when a Trump aide suggested she had prematurely announced a new round of sanctions against Russia.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters Mrs Haley had got “ahead of the curve” by previewing the policy, putting her remarks down to “momentary confusion”.

She fired back hours later telling Fox News: “With all due respect, I don’t get confused.”

The daughter of immigrants from India, Mrs Haley was a frequent and early critic of Mr Trump during his election campaign whilst she served as the Republican governor of South Carolina.

In December 2017, she said that the women who had accused Mr Trump of sexual assault “should be heard”.

At one point she suggested that Mr Trump’s rhetoric could trigger a world war.

BBC New York correspondent Nick Bryant said she had formed a partnership with UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres to protect the UN against Mr Trump’s anti-globalist agenda.

Her with-us-or-against-us approach grated on many diplomats in the chamber but she was widely considered to be an internationalist ally, our correspondent adds.

Republican lawmakers swiftly praised Mrs Haley after the news broke.
Retiring Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said she “has been a clear, consistent, and powerful voice for America’s interests and democratic principles on the world stage”.

“She challenged friend and foe to be better,” he added.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said she had been “a true agent of reform” at the UN.