President-elect Donald Trump announced that two members of his first Cabinet would not be given a role this time around.
Nikki Haley, former UN ambassador, and Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State, will not be offered positions in Trump’s administration as his transition to the White House is underway, he declared in a Saturday evening Truth Social post.
“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,” the former president wrote. “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!”
Haley launched her own presidential bid for the 2024 cycle. She was the last GOP contender challenging Trump when she dropped out of the race in March. Despite some animosity between the pair on the campaign trail — including when Trump labeled her “bird brain” — the former South Carolina governor eventually endorsed Trump for president at the Republican National Convention.
In contrast to Haley, Pompeo has largely remained out of the spotlight since leaving his tenure in the first Trump administration.
He backed Trump at a speech at the Republican National Convention. He told the crowd that the Trump administration “put America first every single day.”
Trump didn’t offer any additional insight into his decision-making, but the former president’s post came one day after his former adviser Roger Stone urged Trump against tapping Pompeo again, writing that the former president “can’t trust” his former secretary of state.
“Now that Trump is back on top, it becomes far more difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff,” Stone wrote on his website on Friday.
“Several neocons have positioned themselves to get highly influential roles within the second Trump administration, and this sinister fifth column has the potential to be more harmful to Trump’s America First agenda than his leftist opinion within the Democrat Party,” he continued. Only Haley and Pompeo made his list.
Regarding Haley, he called her a “political chameleon who has changed with the times in ways that are incredibly self-serving.”
Regarding Pompeo, Stone took issue with him for criticizing Trump’s refusal to hand over classified documents — a move that resulted in a federal criminal case against the former president — and claimed Pompeo “was creating distance and flirting with a potential presidential run of his own.”
It’s unclear if Trump had discussed his decision with Stone before making the Truth Social announcement. The Independent has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
As of Saturday evening, the former president had announced just one Cabinet member. He tapped Susie Wiles, his campaign manager, to serve as chief of staff, making her the first woman with the title.
