Former President Donald Trump, once again a candidate for the White House, assured Saturday that his ex-Republican rival Nikki Haley was not one of the people he was considering for the post of vice-president.
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Predictions are rife about who the septuagenarian candidate will nominate as his running mate for the November presidential election against Democrat Joe Biden.
Among the names circulating the most: senators Tim Scott and JD Vance and New York elected official Elise Stefanik. But some rumors also mentioned the name of Nikki Haley, his last rival in the Republican primaries.
“Nikki Haley is not one of the people I am considering for the position of vice-president,” the Republican candidate said on his social network, cutting short speculation.
“But I wish him all the happiness in the world!”, he added.
The choice of Nikki Haley, former American ambassador to the UN, whom Donald Trump has long given the nickname “sparrow brain”, would have been surprising.
But the former South Carolina governor is popular with moderate and independent Republican voters, votes that Joe Biden might otherwise siphon off from Donald Trump.
Asked by AFP, Donald Trump’s entourage refused to give details on the profile preferred by the septuagenarian candidate.
“Anyone who claims to know who or when President Trump will choose his vice president is lying,” one of his advisers said. “Unless that person’s name is Donald Trump.”
