Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a possible 2024 White House contender, has found herself separated from former President Trump and the populist wing of the GOP that he leads after a harsh interview with Politico in which she criticized her former chief and wrote off his future influence in Republican politics.
The fallout from Haley’s comments emphasizes the risks associated with her strategy of scrutinizing Trump’s efforts and building a separate political identity while at the same time attempting to appeal to his base of supporters.
“It’s a very fine line to walk for a long way between now and the Republican convention in 2024,” stated Alex Conant, a GOP consultant and former adviser to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.).
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“Trump might run again, so you have to treat him as a potential competitor. But even if he doesn’t, he wants influence over who the party picks, and loyalty is what he values more than anything else. So it’s hard to build your own identity separate from him while maintaining loyalty and his support.”
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Trump rejected her request last week for a face-to-face meeting at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. He has shown that he will exact revenge on Republicans whom he thinks have crossed him, throwing Haley’s future political aspirations into an unknown area.
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Since a pro-Trump mob charged the Capitol on Jan. 6, Haley has wavered between sharply scrutinizing the former president and taking a more measured tone toward him. At a GOP retreat the day after the disorder, she announced Trump’s actions “will be judged harshly by history,” according to Politico. Yet later that month, in an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Haley stated that Trump did not deserve to be impeached for his part in the insurrection. More recently, she blamed the media in an op-ed issued by The Wall Street Journal of seeking to sow division among Republicans.
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Still, Haley’s eagerness to deliver a full-throated criticism of Trump — in the Politico interview, she stated he had “let us down” — was an odd tactic for a politician generally seen as eyeing a 2024 bid, a reality that those in Trump’s orbit are well aware of.
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One GOP source told The Hill that Haley has been placing herself for a presidential campaign since she left the Trump administration in 2018, though that she lacks a clear lane in the coming Republican primary and is struggling to understand how to connect with GOP voters under Trump.
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