Haley on Trump administration snub: ‘I know the game he was playing’
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Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said Wednesday that President-elect Trump knew she did not want to serve in his second administration when he publicly announced over the weekend that he would not be offering her a job.
“I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation,” Trump wrote Saturday on Truth Social. “I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Haley brushed off Trump’s snub during her SiriusXM show, “Nikki Haley Live.”
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“I had no interest in being in his Cabinet. He knew that,” she said, later adding, “I have made it clear to everyone that I was not interested in the administration.”
Haley said her husband and son “were upset” by Trump’s post and asked why she didn’t respond publicly that she wasn’t interested in a position. Instead, she responded to the post by wishing the president-elect well.
“And the truth is, I know the game he was playing. I don’t need to play that game,” Haley explained on her show. “But more importantly, we have to look at the bigger picture. It is time to move on.”
“The American people have spoken and spoken very loudly, and at this point, we should pray that President Trump does well. We should pray that everyone that he appoints does well,” she continued. “We should hope for the sake of our kids and generations to follow us, that all of this goes forward.”
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She added that the post was in line with Trump’s character.
“Do I take it personally? No. That’s who he is,” Haley said. “He can be shallow at times, and I think he showed that. But I don’t have to be shallow. And at the end of the day, I’m very comfortable with where I am, and I’m comfortable with what happened.”
Haley served in the first Trump administration and then faced off against the president-elect in what became a bitter 2024 GOP primary face-off, with Haley outlasting all of the challengers. She finally bowed out of the race, clearing the way for Trump to clinch the GOP nomination.
The former U.N. ambassador endorsed him months later. She did not, however, walk back any of her public criticism of him, instead leaning on the argument that “Trump is clearly the better choice.”
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Haley, on her show Wednesday, described a couple of moments when she made it clear to Trump’s inner circle that she was not interested in a White House post.
She said she and her husband were visited in South Carolina by Trump’s close confidant, Steve Witkoff, who “basically wanted a truce between me and Donald Trump.”
“And I told him at the time, there was no truce needed,” Haley said, “that Trump had my support, there was no issue on my end. And at that point, he was like, ‘What do you want? Tell me what you want. Is there anything you want?’ And I said, ‘There’s nothing I want.’ And there wasn’t anything I wanted.”
She recalled another moment several weeks ago, when Trump’s transition co-chair, Howard Lutnick, asked “if I knew of people that would be good in the Cabinet, if there was any insight.”
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Haley said she gave a couple suggestions, “But I did not ask anything for me.”
“What I said is, I think it’s really important that Trump surround himself with people that are going to tell him the truth,” she added. “And I, you know, mentioned someone that I thought would be good for Commerce secretary and mentioned that I thought the U.N. ambassador should be a Cabinet pick.”
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