Former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday paved the way for Nikki Haley to join his ranks, in what appeared to be another step toward easing animosity between the two former rivals.
“I think she would be on our team because we're like-minded and like-minded in a lot of ways,” Trump told New York-area cable TV station News 12, a day after Haley said she would vote for Trump in November's election.
The admission from Haley, a former UN ambassador and now a fierce rival for the Republican presidential nomination, seemed like a necessary first step toward reconciliation between the two.
In an interview after a rally in the Bronx on Wednesday, Trump offered rare praise for Haley, calling her a “very capable person.”
Trump and Haley frequently traded attacks during the lopsided Republican primary that ended with Haley's withdrawal in March.
Trump has repeatedly called Haley a “dumb person” and suggested that her husband, a National Guard soldier, was deployed to get away from her.
Haley has increasingly railed against Trump and his attempts to remove her from the race, calling him “crazy” in late January.
Until recently, the prospects for a reconciliation between the two seemed unclear: Trump denied reports this month that he was considering Haley as a potential running mate.
In his bid to avenge his 2020 election defeat, Trump has enlisted the help of several former Republican opponents, including North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Trump's “team of rivals” mantra, made famous by Abraham Lincoln, was seen as an acknowledgment of Haley's potential value to his campaign, both in terms of money and votes.
Despite dropping out of the Republican nomination race more than two months ago, Haley has continued to draw sizable numbers of voters in subsequent primaries, chipping away at the crucial support Trump may need in a close race against President Biden. In Wisconsin, she won more than 75,000 votes, or about 13% of the total, in this month's Republican primary.
And Haley has donor ties: In April, she was named Walter P. Stern president of the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank with a long list of big donors.
Jazmine Ulloa Contributed report.