All eyes are on who Trump will pick as his running mate. They will be integral to Trump’s take-back of the White House.
And now these Trump VP rumors are rocking the Republican Party.
Former President Donald Trump said on Friday that Republican primary opponent Nikki Haley will not be his candidate for vice president.
Last month, CBS News reported that various sources informed the network that Trump was asking some of his loyalists what they felt of him naming the former South Carolina governor as his running mate.
On Friday night, Trump effectively put an end to rumors of a Trump-Haley ticket for 2024.
At an event in Concord, New Hampshire, Trump told the throng of his supporters that Haley “is okay, but she is not presidential timber.”
“And when I say that, that probably means she is not going to be chosen as the vice president,” the GOP frontrunner added to the applause of the crowd.
Trump says Nikki Haley is "not presidential timber":
"That probably means that she's not gonna be chosen as the vice president." pic.twitter.com/FUZj4kwHBC
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) January 20, 2024
Earlier in the day on Friday, Haley allegedly told some of her supporters that being vice president is “off the table.”
“I’ve said from the very beginning: I don’t play for second. I don’t want to be anybody’s vice president. That is off the table,” she said, according to POLITICO.
Trump and Haley’s statements came as both candidates prepared for the first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire on Tuesday.
The New Hampshire primary appears to be Haley’s greatest hope for an early upset of the former president, but she still remains 16 points behind Trump in the polls, according to the RealClearPolitics average.
Trump pulled away with the Iowa caucuses earlier this week, earning a nearly 30-point victory over second-place Ron DeSantis.
Trump took 98 of the state’s 99 counties and garnered over 50% of the vote. Haley finished third, behind DeSantis, getting 19% of the vote.
In his 2016 run for the White House, Trump waited until he had clinched the nomination to pick his VP, tapping Mike Pence as his running mate just a few days before the Republican Party convention.
The 2024 GOP convention begins on July 15 and runs until July 18 in Milwaukee.
At his campaign event on Friday, Trump received another endorsement, this time from Haley’s fellow South Carolinian, Sen. Tim Scott. Scott’s endorsement of Trump comes a month before the South Carolina primary, where Trump is currently leading in the polls.
“We need a president who will close our southern border today,” said Scott.
“We need Donald Trump. We need a president who can unite our country. We need Donald Trump. We need a president who will protect your Social Security and my mama’s Social Security. We need Donald Trump, who will stop the crime and recklessness in the streets. We need a president who will restore law and order. We need a president who will lower taxes and not raise our taxes.”
Stay tuned to the DC Daily Journal.
