Trump mocks Haley, says won’t choose her as running mate

Washington, January 20

Ex-US president Donald Trump has thrown cold water on the idea of picking Indian-American presidential candidate Nikki Haley as a running mate, saying that she was not of that calibre, hours after she herself nixed the possibility. He also mocked her first name. “She is OK, but she is not presidential timber. And when I say that, that probably means she is not going to be chosen as the vice president,” Trump, who is the dominant front-runner for the Republican nomination, said at a rally in Concord on Friday.

Haley, who is Trump’s closest rival in the polls in New Hampshire, has repeatedly said she is not running for second place in the Republican primary — but had previously declined to specifically comment on whether she would be the former president’s running mate.

Earlier on Friday, Haley, 51, appeared to more definitively nix the idea, telling a group of voters that being vice president was “off the table”. Trump also lobbed racially charged attacks at Haley by repeatedly referring to her as “Nimbra”, in an apparent intentional misspelling of her birth name. Haley, 52, whose parents moved to the US in the 1960s, was born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. The former South Carolina governor has long used her middle name Nikki and adopted the surname Haley after her marriage in 1996. — PTI

Racially charged attacks

Trump lobbed racially charged attacks at Haley by repeatedly referring to her as “Nimbra”, in an apparent intentional misspelling of her birth name. Born Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, she adopted her surname Haley after her marriage in 1996.