Trump Won’t Have Haley or Pompeo President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that he would not invite Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, or Mike Pompeo, his former secretary of state, to join his incoming administration.
Mr. Trump’s announcement on Truth Social, his social media platform, was an early indication of the president-elect’s decision-making process as he navigates ideological differences within the Republican Party.
Days after his election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump’s team has already begun its first formal transition meetings and is intensifying the process of forming his new government.
By excluding Mr. Pompeo and Ms. Haley, Mr. Trump has rejected two Republicans who have supported American support for Ukraine at a time when Mr. Trump and many of his allies are pushing to cut American aid to allies and intervene militarily abroad.
“I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to join the Trump Administration that is currently being formed,” Trump wrote in his post. “I have greatly enjoyed working with and admire them, and I want to thank them for their service to our country.”
Trump was also dismissive of two senior officials in his first administration who have criticized him in recent years.
Many Trump insiders, including David Sachs, a major donor to his campaign, have seen Pompeo as too eager to use the military abroad. Trump also likely hasn’t forgotten that in 2023, Pompeo warned at the Conservative Political Action Conference that Republicans should not follow “celebrity leaders who embrace their own brand of identity politics — those with fragile egos who refuse to acknowledge reality.”
Days later, during an interview with Fox News, Pompeo claimed he wasn’t talking about Trump, and he also criticized his former boss’s fiscal policy.
In 2022, Mr. Pompeo also criticized Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago home.
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“No one has the right to keep classified information outside of where classified information should be. That’s absolutely true,” Mr. Pompeo said, and he condemned the Justice Department for its handling of the case.
Ms. Haley was also the latest rival to drop out of the race for the Republican nomination. Just days before the election, Ms. Haley said that Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric was alienating women and minorities, citing racist and misogynistic remarks made by speakers at a Mr. Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in October.
“These intimate, male-on-male relationships are so close that they’re going to make women uncomfortable,” Ms. Haley said. Despite repeated offers to advise the campaign, Mr. Trump has mostly kept her at arm’s length during his presidential campaign. Mr. Trump’s gamble to mobilize men, who historically vote less than women, would eventually pay off. Both Mr. Pompeo and Ms. Haley eventually came out in support of Mr. Trump and endorsed his candidacy. Donald J. Trump