Former president Donald Trump said Thursday that his former GOP primary rival Nikki Haley will “be on our team in some form” heading into the November election against President Biden.
Trump’s comment came after Haley said for the first time this week that she would vote for him.
“I appreciate what she said,” Trump told Fox News in an interview that aired Friday. “The party is together.”
He also spoke about Haley with local outlet News 12 after his well-attended campaign rally in the Bronx on Thursday saying, “I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,”
“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,” Trump said.
The pair traded barbs throughout the primary, with Trump nicknaming Haley “birdbrain” and questioning her husband’s absence from the campaign trail, despite Haley having publicly said her husband was on a military deployment overseas.
Haley, meanwhile, questioned the 77-year-old former president’s mental acuity.
Upon dropping out of the race in March, Haley declined to endorse Trump and said it would be on the former president to “earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that.”
“At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing,” Haley said, an apparent reference to Trump’s having said he would “permanently” ban anyone who donated to Haley from the MAGA camp.
On Wednesday, during her first public appearance since dropping out of the race, Haley expressed her intention to vote for Trump.
“I put my priorities on a president who’s going to have the backs of our allies and hold our enemies to account who would secure the border,” Haley said during a discussion on foreign policy at the Hudson Institute.
“Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I’ve made that clear many, many times,” she added. “But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump.”
Still, she once again called on Trump to prioritize appealing to her supporters.
“Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who voted for me and continue to support me and not assume that they’re just going to be with him,” she said. “And I genuinely hope he does.”
The comments from both sides come less than two weeks after Trump said she is not on his shortlist of vice presidential contenders, despite recent media reporting to the contrary.
“Nikki Haley is not under consideration for the V.P. slot, but I wish her well!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Axios reported that Haley is “under active consideration” by team Trump to serve as the former president’s running mate.
“The GOP rivals’ relationship remains chilly, but Trump could pick Haley if he were convinced she’d help him win the presidency, avoid a potential prison sentence and cover tens of millions in legal bills if he loses,” the report indicated.
The report laid out several reasons Trump could turn to Haley as a potential running mate, including her strength with donors who are wary of Trump and her popularity with college-educated Republicans who supported her in the primary.
Before Haley dropped out of the race, she indicated the prospect of her serving as Trump’s VP was “off the table.” Trump, for his part, said at that time that he would not pick Haley. “She is OK, 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.”
During his interview with News 12 on Thursday, Trump shared several names from his VP shortlist, including Ben Carson, Senators Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and J.D. Vance (R., Ohio), and Representative Elise Stefanik (R., N.Y.)