Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has warned Donald Trump against choosing GOP primary rival Nikki Haley as his running mate, describing the potential 2024 Republican ticket as "poison."
The former South Carolina governor, who is gaining momentum in her own 2024 bid, has been touted as a potential pick to become Trump's running mate should she drop out of the race. There have previously been suggestions that Trump could choose a female running mate in order to broaden the ticket's appeal, with Haley also potentially appealing to more moderate Republican and independent voters.
Speaking at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest during a live discussion hosted by podcaster Tim Pool, Carlson, who has also been suggested as a potential VP pick for the former president, said that not only would he not vote for a Trump-Haley ticket but would "advocate against it as strongly as I could."
"That's just poison," Carlson added. "Here's somebody who's actively opposed to the interests of the country I grew up in, who endorsed the [Black Lives Matter] riots, and who is not left but is neoliberal in the darkest, most nihilistic way, and has no real popular support and is a creature of the oligarchs."
Carlson went on to say that he "can't imagine a world" in which Trump would want Haley as his running mate.
"That would be so crazy. Anything could happen, of course, but picking Nikki Haley, who's utterly treacherous and utterly dismissive of the interest of Americans," Carlson said before agreeing that such a decision would be a "no" for him.
Newsweek reached out to Nikki Haley and Donald Trump's offices via email for comment.
Trump recently told radio host Howie Carr that it is "unlikely" that would pick Haley as his running mate, as the pair have "some things in common and some things we don't have in common, and some of those things are pretty important."
A recent survey conducted exclusively for Newsweek by Redfield and Wilton Strategies showed that 19 percent of people who would vote for Trump in 2024 would prefer Haley to be his running mate, up from 5 percent in September.
The poll revealed that Ron DeSantis, at 25 percent, remains the first choice for Trump's VP among supporters of the former president, although it is even more unlikely that Trump would pick Florida governor as his running mate given the huge animosity between the one-time close allies.
Danielle Vinson, a professor of politics and international affairs at Furman University in South Carolina, said she can't imagine that Haley, who served in the Trump administration as the United States ambassador to the United Nations, would want to be his running mate.
"She is not someone that I can envision sitting quietly in meetings and supporting some of Trump's more chaotic or constitutionally questionable plans and actions," Vinson told Newsweek.
"Even if she doesn't win the nomination in 2024, she has positioned herself well for a future run. If she were to serve as Trump's VP, she will own everything he does, and she will not have his support at the end of it—like with Mike Pence."
Elsewhere, Carlson also dismissed suggestions that he could be Trump's next running mate, telling SiriusXM's Megyn Kelly that such a move is "just so unimaginable."
"That's not how my brain works. I've never done anything like that. I can't imagine spending time with politicians," Carlson said.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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