It was only a matter of time that someone would float the Donald Trump-Nikki Haley ticket for 2020. And someone has. A piece written by Andrew Stein, who founded the Democrats for Trump movement in 2016, in The Wall Street Journal advocates Haley as a replacement for the current Vice President Mike Pence. The overarching logic of putting Haley in is that her presence would help Trump win over moderate suburban women.
Quite apart from the fact that it takes particular brazenness to suggest a woman for the 2020 ticket in the immediate aftermath of allegations of sexual assault in the mid-1990s by the well-known advice columnist E. Jean Carroll against the president, it also takes remarkable presumption to think that Haley would consider it.
Haley is known to have her own presidential ambitions and it is unlikely that she would like to animate them standing next to the most toxic president in recent history even though she did indeed choose to work for him with great enthusiasm. I think there is next to no chance of Haley saying yes but I could be wrong.
The op-ed of this politically fraught nature in the WSJ has to have acquiescence from its owner Rupert Murdoch. While Murdoch has a strong enough relationship with the president to directly suggest Haley rather than going via an op-ed, it creates a stronger buzz if it appears on the pages of his newspaper in the name of someone who is the founder of the Democrats for Trump movement.
To Haley’s credit she did manage to chart a reasonably independent course as America’s ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, especially in the context of Russia. She was also very critical of him in 2016. I seriously wonder whether she would be inclined to join the ticket if it ever came to that. So far it is only the wish of a single person in an op-ed even though it could have been carefully orchestrated.
It might be best for Trump to run alone like he does in most matters. He could just have a Trump-Trump ticket. I don’t think Trump needs a vice president or for that matter any cabinet member. (Sarcasm.)
