President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday that Nikki Haley — who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during his first term and then ran against him for the Republican nomination this cycle — will not be invited to join his administration.
He also said that Mike Pompeo, who served as both secretary of state and CIA director during Trump’s first term, would also not appear in his Cabinet again.
“I will not invite former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration as it is currently being formed,” Trump wrote. “I really enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and I would like to thank them for their service to our country.”
This comes after two sources familiar with the process CBS News had told that the 60-year-old Pompeo was discussed as a possible candidate for secretary of defense.
Haley, 52, the former governor of South Carolina, ran for the Republican nomination in 2016 but endorsed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio after dropping out.
However, Trump still chose her as his UN ambassador, a position she held until her death abrupt resignation in 2018. Trump praised her at the time, saying she was “very special” to him and that she could return to his administration in the future, adding: “You get to choose.”
Haley did not run for president in 2020, but launched a bid against her former boss in 2024. She her campaign suspended after Super Tuesday in March, the last major Republican challenger in the field to do this.
But it wasn’t until more than two months later, then she provided an address at Milwaukee’s Republican National Convention in July, she said she supported Trump.
She said at the time that Trump had asked her to speak in a “show of unity.”
In one interview On CBS News’ “Face the Nation” in September, Haley told Margaret Brennan that “I don’t agree with Trump 100% of the time.”
“I don’t have to like him or agree with him 100% of the time to know that life would be better for Americans under a policy where we had strong immigration, where we had law and order, where we had a economy where we We could look at opportunities, where we have strong national security,” she said.
Pompeo, who also supported Trump at the RNC, served all four years of the first Trump administration. He chosen not to run against Trump in 2024.
Trump on Friday announced that he had selected his campaign co-chair, Susie Wiles, to be White House chief of staff, making her the first woman in history to hold that post. It was his first major personnel decision in the White House since he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become president.
Kathryn Watson, Melissa Quinn, Caitlin Yilek, James LaPorta and Robert Costa contributed to this report.
