One day after former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said she would cast a vote for former President Donald Trump in November, Trump Thursday addressed Haley’s remarks following a rally in the Bronx — his first major campaign event in New York City since 2016.
“I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, told News 12 New York. “I appreciated what she said. You know, we had a nasty campaign, it was pretty nasty. But she’s a very capable person, and I’m sure she’s going to be on our team in some form, absolutely.”
During an event Wednesday at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., her first since suspending her presidential campaign in March, Haley said that she would “be voting for Trump.”
Her declaration came despite intense criticism of her former opponent during her presidential run, when she often referred to Trump as being “unhinged.”
And in her speech announcing she was dropping her presidential bid, Haley said it was “now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him.”
The former South Carolina governor served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Trump administration.
In a May 11 post to his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that Haley “is not under consideration” to be his vice presidential candidate. Trump though Thursday appeared to skirt the question when asked if she was being considered as a potential running mate, instead listing the names of several other prominent Republicans he said were doing a “fantastic job,” including Sens. Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, Rep. Elise Stefanik and Dr. Ben Carson.
“You could take people like Ben Carson, you could take people like Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance, I mean there are so many. Elise is doing a fantastic job,” Trump said. “We have many people that would do a really fantastic job.”
When asked about a timeline for a decision, Trump responded that it would likely come “sometime during the convention.”
The Republican National Convention is scheduled for July 15-18 in Milwaukee.
Trump has spent the last several weeks in a Manhattan courtroom attending his ongoing “hush money” criminal trial. His defense rested its case Tuesday, with closing arguments set to take place next week.
— Kathryn Watson contributed to this report.
