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Nikki Haley won’t accept second place: ‘I don’t want to be anybody’s vice-president’

January 20, 2024 | | Print Article

For Nikki Haley, it looks like it’s the Oval Office or nothing at all as the GOP presidential candidate reportedly rejected the idea that she’d settle for the bottom spot on the party’s 2024 ticket.

In remarks reported by Politico reporter Jonathan Martin, the former South Carolina governor and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations told voters in New Hampshire that being vice president is beneath her and suggested that she’d reject the offer.

In a Friday post to X sharing a recent article that he penned, Martin wrote that Haley “just told a table of voters at a diner in Amherst, NH – ‘I don’t want to be anybody’s vice-president, that’s off the table’”

The suddenly flailing candidate’s remarks come as the media’s touting of her viability collided with the reality of the will of the voters after she was smoked in the Iowa caucuses, coming in third behind former President Donald J. Trump who was dominant, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who took second place.

The disappointment in the Hawkeye State makes it even more crucial for Haley to win in New Hampshire on Tuesday or at least come in a close second behind Trump with the primary in her home state a month later.

But the establishment darling has had a very rough week, capped off on Friday when Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) endorsed Trump, a major blow to Haley who as governor, had picked him to fill the South Carolina U.S. Senate seat vacated when Sen. Jim DeMint retired.

There has been much speculation that Trump could select her as his veep but the frontrunner seemed to shoot down hopes that he would choose her as his running mate if he goes on to win the nomination.

“She is not presidential timber,” Trump said at a Friday event in Concord, N.H. “Now when I say that, that probably means that she’s not going to be chosen as the vice president.”

Haley’s rejection of a subordinate role would be good news to those who have criticized the idea, suggesting that she would devote her time in office to undermining Trump.

“Nikki Haley as VP would be an establishment neocon fantasy and a MAGA nightmare,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) told Martin. “On Day One she would convert the Naval Observatory into an anti-Trump, resistance headquarters, undermining him at every step.”

“Nikki Haley wants to be in every war the world has to offer,” the frontrunner’s son Donald Trump Jr. said in a speech to Iowa voters before the caucuses, pledging that his father won’t send the “next generation to die in yet another never-ending war.”

“I would do whatever I could to make sure it wasn’t Nikki Haley,” Trump Jr. said during a Thursday Newsmax appearance. “That’s my opinion, I don’t make these decisions.”

Haley’s alleged comments come after Axios reported that she was on the short list of Trump’s possible choices along with Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and some might suggest that Scott would also be an option after his big endorsement.

Chris Donaldson
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