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- Former President Donald Trump appears all but guaranteed to be the GOP's next presidential nominee.
- If he is, he'll need a running mate. He's already worked with Nikki Haley before, why not again?
- After a PR disaster on Wednesday, Haley didn't rule out the possibility.
After spending much of her Thursday backtracking her previous comments about the root cause of slavery, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley dodged ruling out the possibility of becoming former President Donald Trump's vice president in 2024.
Whilst Haley was answering questions on the campaign trail, a potential voter said they were trying to allow the candidate to "redeem" herself in the wake of her recent negative publicity.
"This is a chance to redeem yourself after last night's slavery thing," the unnamed person said. "Would you be able to say categorically that you will not accept being Trump's vice president?"
Presented with a clear yes-or-no choice, Haley decided to avoid answering the question altogether, instead responding with a "truth"-filled word salad.
"I could say to you what you want to hear, and you could go check that box and go do whatever, but I'm going to continue to tell you my truth and the truth that I have always told the truth," the candidate said. "Even when I was in the administration, President Trump and I worked well together. Why? Because I told him the truth. If you want to talk about vice president, I will tell you this now: I've said it before, I don't play for second. I've never played for second. I'm not going to start now."
The response, as convoluted as it was, did not answer the question.
Haley said she's not running the race with the goal in mind of becoming vice president. But, by declining to say she wouldn't take on the responsibility if asked, she's at least tacitly allowing the narrative to continue and grow.
The former governor of South Carolina already has a prior history of working with Trump. For nearly two years during his time in office, between January 2017 to December 2018, Haley served as the US ambassador to the United Nations.
After her PR disaster Wednesday over the origins of slavery — proverbially shooting her campaign in the foot mere weeks before the Iowa caucuses and other GOP primaries are slated to begin — Haley and her campaign may very well have realized that her best shot at the White House is not the seat at the Resolute desk, but rather two and a half miles away in the Naval Observatory.