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Nikki Haley is the Republican governor of South Carolina
Donald Trump was in her state Monday when he talked about banning all Muslims from entering the U.S.
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley did not mince words on Tuesday when she called Donald Trump’s proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States “absolutely un-American” and “unconstitutional.”
“It defies everything that this country was based on and it’s just wrong,” the Republican said, speaking to reporters in Columbia and adding later that the policy was “an embarrassment” to her party. A clip of her remarks were posted to Twitter by her communications director.
Trump used a stop in her state – aboard the USS Yorktown docked in Mount Pleasant – on Monday to expand on a press release in which he called “for a total antrumpd complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on.”
Read: Donald Trump counters condemnation with a warning
The governor, who is considered a possible vice presidential pick, has been coy about where she stands in the endorsement process, but has been firm in her rhetoric of healing and peace in the past six months since the shooting at Mother Emanuel Church in Charleston and the removal of the Confederate flag at the Statehouse.
She told CNN’s Don Lemon in July, “You know, we can have our disagreements and we can have our policy back and forth. But no one should feel pain over something. Not over a symbol.”
In August, Haley told the Republican National Committee’s summer meeting in Cleveland that it’s “easy to be divisive” in politics but argued “it’s courageous to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.”
Trump was conspicuously absent from a Heritage Action Forum that was co-hosted by the governor in September in Greenville, South Carolina. He canceled his appearance a few hours before the event because of a “significant business transaction.”