President-elect Donald Trump sent a very clear message Saturday about how he will assemble a cabinet. In a message on Truth Social, Trump ruled out any role for former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
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. I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to…
— Trump Posts on 𝕏 (@trump_repost) November 9, 2024
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. I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Both Pompeo and Haley had been rumored to be finalists for cabinet positions, and Trump’s move to eliminate them from consideration bodes well for his new Administration.
While I think Haley and Pompeo are talented and did superb jobs in Trump 1.0, there is no doubt that they both have their sights set on the White House. At the same time, there is a lot of doubt that they are philosophically aligned with President Trump on foreign policy or have the humility to serve him loyally if they disagree. Pompeo, in my opinion, was one of those appointees in the first Trump Administration in the mold of John Kelly, James Mattis, and Rex Tillerson who saw themselves as the adults in the room charged with the mission of keeping an impulsive and not-very-bright Trump from breaking too many things. Last time around, Pompeo used his role as CIA director to block key Michael Flynn aides from serving on the National Security Council.
I think Haley and Pompeo’s first allegiance will be to protect their personal brands against a future presidential run. They will probably leak, and slow-roll Trump policies they believe will harm their personal political chances.
I’ve also never been a fan of the “team of rivals” bulls***. If key subordinates don’t like each other, and that impacts their ability to cooperate in a collegial manner, the entire organization suffers. In his upcoming memoir, Pompeo allegedly accuses Haley of trying to push Mike Pence off the 2020 ticket.
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claims in his upcoming memoir that former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley plotted with former President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to try to become Trump’s vice president, according to an excerpt of the book obtained by CNN.
Pompeo, in his book “Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love,” takes several shots at potential 2024 Republican rivals, including Haley and former national security adviser John Bolton, as the onetime Kansas congressman and CIA director fuels speculation about his own presidential ambitions.
Pompeo writes that he was told by John Kelly, Trump’s chief of staff at the time, that Haley had scheduled a meeting with the president to discuss what she claimed was a personal matter and then came to the Oval Office meeting with Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who were serving as White House senior advisers.
“As best Kelly could tell, they were presenting a possible ‘Haley for vice president’ option. I can’t confirm this, but he was certain he had been played, and he was not happy about it. Clearly, this visit did not reflect a team effort but undermined our work for America,” Pompeo writes in his book.
Haley reacted by calling Pompeo a liar.
Nikki Haley said the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo’s claim that she plotted to replace Mike Pence as Donald Trump’s vice-president was “lies and gossip to sell a book”.
Over the next four years, Trump will confront one of the most challenging foreign policy environments since the first days of the Cold War. The environment did not arrive organically; it was created by the weakness and stupidity of Joe Biden and his national security team. To navigate those challenges, Trump needs a team that is loyal to him and to carrying out his policies. He doesn’t need self-important divas looking for their turn in the White House or to burnish their image. Neither Mike Pompeo nor Nikki Haley, whatever their virtues, fits comfortably in that operating environment.
