GOP presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis leaned into rumors Friday that rival Nikki Haley could be asked to join former President Trump’s ticket in 2024, willing the former South Carolina governor to make a decision now.
“There’s a reason why they spend money against me. Haley and Trump spend money against me,” DeSantis, the governor of Florida, said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. “He has not spent any money against her and she has not spent any money against him.”
“She will not answer directly, and she owes you an answer to this: Will she accept a vice presidential nomination from Donald Trump? Yes or no?” he added.
His pressure campaign comes as Haley continues to gain momentum in national polling and has notched key endorsements from GOP mega-donors in recent months. While both candidates continue to tail Trump by a wide margin, they are seen as neck-in-neck for second place.
DeSantis, in an attempt to distance himself from the former U.N. ambassador, claimed if he were asked to join Trump’s team, he wouldn’t accept.
“I can tell you under any circumstance, I will not accept that, because that’s not why I’m running,” he said. “I’m running for the nomination and to be president.”
“And I’m totally fine, you know, I’d rather be governor than vice president, no question. I can do more for my state and this country without question,” DeSantis added.
Haley made similar comments earlier this year when some argued she joined the 2024 race in order to get to the vice presidency.
In August, she told reporters that she didn’t launch a bid just to run for second place.
“That’s something that I hear all the time, and I’ll tell you that, look, we have a country to save, and I don’t trust anybody else to do it,” she argued at the time.
The suggestion was brought back into the spotlight late last month when former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in an interview that Trump should select Haley as his running mate.
“If I was a political person, and I was going to advise somebody, you’re going to pick the vice president that’s about addition, not subtraction,” McCarthy said during the New York Times’s DealBook Summit, explaining his position. “So you’re not going to pick somebody that already equates to you.”
Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, echoed the sentiment earlier this week, arguing that “crazier things have happened.”
In response, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of Trump’s strongest allies in the House, claimed “MAGA would revolt” if the former president even entertained the idea of allowing Haley onto his team.
The news comes as the Iowa caucuses — now just a month away — are set to kick off the GOP primary voting season.