BREAKING: Trump Denies He’s ‘Actively Considering’ Nikki Haley As VP After Reports
(AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)
Donald Trump is denying a new reporting claiming that Nikki Haley is under “active consideration” to be his 2024 running mate.
After Axios broke the stunning news on Saturday that people “familiar” with the details said Haley, the last Republican to withdraw from the primary, was on Trump’s short list, he took to Truth Social to deny it. But not bombastically.
“Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the V.P. slot,” he wrote, “but I wish her well! DJT”
In its report, Axios cited “two people familiar with the dynamic” who confirmed that Trump was considering Haley.
The report added, “The GOP rivals’ relationship remains chilly, but Trump could pick Haley if he were convinced she’d help him win the presidency, avoid a potential prison sentence and cover tens of millions in legal bills if he loses.”
Haley dropped out of the presidential race in March, saying, “In all likelihood, Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee when our party convention meets in July. I congratulate him and wish him well. I wish anyone well, who would be America’s president. Our country is too precious to let our differences divide us.”
However, she failed to publicly endorse Trump, despite the RNC’s “loyalty pledge.” Haley said:
I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee but on this question, as she did on so many others, Margaret Thatcher provided some good advice when she said, quote, “Never just follow the crowd, always make up your own mind.” It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that.
At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.
Haley served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, yet he famously nicknamed her “bird brain” when she ran against him for the GOP nomination.
Trump has made no effort to reach out to Haley or her voters, according to The New York Times, after saying in January that Haley donors would be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp.”
At least one Fox News pundit said Trump should not have reacted so quickly to denounce the Haley report.
“I think it was a bad move for him,” Jonathan Kott told Fox’s Griff Jenkins. “I think he should have played this out a lite longer, let the speculation grew. It may have helped him with some of her supporters who he’s losing. He just lost 150,000 of them in Indiana, a similar number in Pennsylvania and Florida. These are key states where he can’t afford to lose 150,000 votes to one of his competitors.”
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
