Indian-American Nikki Haley announces 2024 US presidential bid, challenges Trump

Nikki Haley, who served as Trump's US ambassador to the United Nations, will lay out her campaign plans in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.

Washington, Feb 14: Indian-American and Former US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced Tuesday she is running for president in 2024, challenging her one-time boss Donald Trump by proposing a change in leadership.

"I'm Nikki Haley and I'm running for president," Haley said in a video that her team sent out by email.

"It's time for a new generation of leadership - to rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border, and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose," Haley said in her video.

She also harked back to her foreign policy experience.

"China and Russia are on the march. They all think we can be bullied, kicked. You should know this about me: I don't put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you're wearing heels," she said.

Haley is positioning herself as a changemaker who can reinvigorate a party and country.

"I was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants. Not black, not white. I was different," she said in the clip.

"But my mom would always say, 'Your job is not to focus on the differences, but the similarities.'"

"Some look at our past as evidence that America's founding principles are bad," she went on.

"They say the promise of freedom is just made up. Some think our ideas are not just wrong, but racist, and evil. Nothing could be further from the truth."

Haley also took a dig at Joe Biden, saying his record is abysmal.

"But that shouldn't come as a surprise. The Washington establishment has failed us over and over and over again."

Haley has been active in Republican politics and is widely considered a rising star within the party.

Pushing for change in power, Haley had been hinting at a possible run for weeks and teasing a "big announcement" on February 15.

Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as Trump's U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will lay out her campaign plans in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.