Nikki Haley requested a meeting with Donald Trump but was reportedly turned down, a report says.
According to Politico, a "source familiar" with the matter told Playbook that Trump denied Haley's request for a meeting on Wednesday at Mar-a-Lago. They have yet to speak to each other after she criticized Trump for his alleged incitement of the Capitol riots.
In a speech the day after the Jan. 6 event, she told the members of Republican National Committee that the former president spoke the "wrong" words.
"President Trump has not always chosen the right words. He was wrong with his words in Charlottesville, and I told him so at the time. He was badly wrong with his words yesterday. And it wasn't just his words. His actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history," she said.
In an interview with Politico's Tim Alberta, Haley blasted Trump again. Asked if the Republican Party would "heal with Trump in the picture," she replied, ""I don't think he's going to be in the picture. I don't think he can. He's fallen so far."
"We need to acknowledge he let us down. He went down a path he shouldn't have, and we shouldn't have followed him, and we shouldn't have listened to him. And we can't let that ever happen again," she stated further.
After publication of the interview, Haley tried to explain herself in her Wall Street Journal article, "The Media Tries to Divide Republicans."
"The media playbook starts with the demand that everyone pick sides about Donald Trump-either love or hate everything about him," she wrote.
But Politico said that Trump was not convinced of Haley's explanation and thus refused her request for a meeting.
Forbes said that she is rumored to be running for the 2024 presidential election following the launch of political-action committee (PAC) named after her other political group "Stand for America." The PAC is already online soliciting for donations.
In an email to supporters, Haley promised that the PAC will be "laser-focused on the 2022 midterms and electing a conservative force to the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate to serve as a bulwark against the liberal agendas of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Chuck Schumer, and Nancy Pelosi."
Morning Consult showed that in a survey conducted on Jan. 8-11, 5% of the Republicans voted for her as 2024 Republican primary, although it still dominated by Trump with 42% votes.
Born Nimrata Nikki Randhawa to parents who are Indian immigrants, Haley was the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in 2017 to 2018. She was also the first woman to have served as governor in South Carolina in 2011 to 2017.
She started her career in 2004 in the House of Representatives under the Republican Party and was reelected in 2008. She became South Carolina's governor in 2011 and won the reelection in 2014.
She resigned from the post when Trump nominated her as the country's ambassador to United Nations in 2017. But due to some of her contradicting opinions with Trump and the desire "to speak her own mind," she resigned and left office in 2018.
