Nikki Haley says she turned down a Cabinet position after Trump sent team asking her for a ‘truce’

Nikki Haley turned down a Cabinet position in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration after he asked her for a “truce.”

Speaking on her SiriusXM radio show this Wednesday, she revealed that prior to Election Day, Trump’s ally Steve Witkoff came to her home in South Carolina seeking a “truce” between her and Trump in exchange for a Cabinet position.

There was just one problem.

Listen:

“I had no interest in being in his Cabinet — he knew that,” Haley revealed on Wednesday.

But that didn’t mean she was Trump’s enemy by default.

“There was no truce needed — Trump had my support,” she explained. “There was no issues on my end.”

That said, when Witkoff asked her what she wanted, she replied, “There’s nothing I want.”

Her admission comes days after Trump won the 2024 presidential election and then announced that neither she nor former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will be in his second administration.

“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,” he wrote 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,” he added.

Haley responded to the statement with one of her own saying how “proud” she was to have previously worked with Trump and also wishing him “great success in moving” the country “forward.”

However, she revealed on Wednesday that both her husband and her son had pushed her to forcefully note in her statement that she had no interest in being in the Trump administration, period.

“The truth is, I know the game he was playing,” she said. “I don’t need to play that game, but more importantly, we have to look at the bigger picture. It is time to move on. Do I take it personally? No, that’s who he is. He can be shallow at times, and I think he showed that.”

Haley also revealed that, after the election, she’d spoken with Trump’s transition team Co-Chair Howard Lutnick.

“What I said is, I think it’s really important that Trump surrounds himself with people that are going to tell him the truth, and I mentioned someone I thought would be good for commerce secretary and mentioned that I thought the UN ambassador should be a cabinet pick,” Haley recalled. “I did not ask anything for me.”

Haley famously ran against Trump in the 2024 presidential primary election, during which she repeatedly slammed him — like she did, for example, at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

“We’ve lost the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections,” she said there. “Our cause is right. But we have failed to win the confidence of a majority of Americans. That ends now.”

“If you’re tired of losing, put your trust in a new generation. And if you want to win — not just as a party, but as a country — then stand with me,” she added.

Sadly for her, Haley’s speech was met with pro-Trump heckling:

Trump meanwhile never really complained about her candidacy.

“Even though Nikki Haley said, ‘I would never run against my President, he was a great President, the best President in my lifetime,’ I told her she should follow her heart and do what she wants to do. I wish her luck!” his campaign said in a statement following her presidential announcement in March of 2023.

The warm feelings may have stemmed from the positive comments she’d made about him to the Wall Street Journal back in the fall of 2021.

“He has the ability to get strong people elected, and he has the ability to move the ball, and I hope that he continues to do that,” she said. “We need him in the Republican Party. I don’t want us to go back to the days before Trump.”

How times have changed.

Vivek Saxena

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