Newly announced Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley during an interview on Sunday dodged questions about how she differs from former President Trump, instead saying she is focused on defeating President Biden.
“I don’t focus on President Trump,” Haley said on “Fox News Sunday” when asked how she differs from the former president. “It’s amazing that the media wants to talk about that so much. I am focused on Joe Biden.”
But Haley, who served as South Carolina’s governor and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, will cross paths with Trump at some point, as both are running for the Republican nomination to be president in 2024. The two are the only announced candidates thus far. Haley, a former Trump official, has mostly evaded questions about him but has also called for a new generation of leadership in the party.
“I think we need new energy going in,” Haley said on Sunday. “I think we need to leave the status quo of the past and start looking ahead.”
Trump, who announced his candidacy right after the midterm elections in November, has blasted Haley for previously saying she would not run if Trump ran in 2024.
“I would not run if President Trump ran,” Haley said in April 2021. “And I would talk to him about it. That is something that we’ll have a conversation about at some point if that decision is something that has to be made.”
But Trump has also welcomed her entry into the race, saying “the more the merrier.”
“I’m glad she’s running,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News last week. “I want her to follow her heart — even though she made a commitment that she would never run against who she called the greatest president of her lifetime.”
Haley said that at launch events last week in New Hampshire and South Carolina, no one asked her about the former president. Instead, she said they are worried about the Biden administration.
“Not one person asked me about President Trump,” Haley said on Fox News. “Everybody wanted to talk about Biden.”