Published on 08:27 PM, October 09, 2018

UN Nikki Haley resigns, Trump accepts

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley speaks during a news conference at UN headquarters in Manhattan in New York, US on September 20, 2018. Reuters file photo.

UN Ambassador Nikki Haley has resigned, a personal familiar with the situation said today, and the White House said she would appear with President Donald Trump at an event later in the morning.

Trump accepted the resignation, Axios news site reported, citing two sources familiar with the matter. Haley discussed her resignation with Trump last week when she visited him at the White House, these sources said.

It was not immediately clear why she quit.

"Big announcement with my friend Ambassador Nikki Haley in the Oval Office at 10:30am," Trump wrote on Twitter.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the two would meet in the Oval Office with media present.

Haley is the latest in a long list of senior staff members to leave the Trump administration, including former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson who was fired in March.

Haley, who has been one of Trump's most trusted advisers, would not confirm the report to Reuters when asked about it during a visit to the White House today.

Earlier this year, Haley, 46, told Reuters that, "Every day I feel like I put body armor on," to protect US interests at the United Nations.

Haley was governor of South Carolina when she was tapped by Trump to be the US envoy to the United Nations. Elected as the state's first female governor in 2010, she was in her second four-year term when Trump picked her.