President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that Nikki Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador during his first term and then ran against him in the Republican nomination this cycle, will not be invited to join his administration.
He also said Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state and CIA director during Trump’s first term, will not return to his cabinet.
“I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to join the Trump Administration, which is currently under construction. I have greatly enjoyed working with them in the past and would like to thank them for their service to our country,” Trump tweeted.
Haley, 52, ran for the Republican nomination in 2016 but endorsed Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida after dropping out.
But Trump still appointed her as his ambassador to the United Nations, a post she held until her abrupt resignation in 2018.
Haley did not run for president in 2020, but she has launched a bid to challenge her former boss in 2024. She suspended her campaign after Super Tuesday in March. But it wasn’t until more than two months later, when she delivered a speech at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July, that she endorsed Trump. She said at the time that Trump asked her to speak “to show unity.”
In an interview with CBS News in September, Haley said she “doesn’t agree with Trump 100 percent.”
Pompeo, who also endorsed Trump, held the job for all four years of the first Trump administration. He has decided not to run against Trump in 2024. Trump announced Friday that he had named his campaign co-chair Susie Wiles as his White House chief of staff, making her the first woman to hold the job. It was his first major White House personnel decision since defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential election.