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Former UN ambassador recognised as someone who can boost presidential candidate’s support with under three weeks until election day
Nikki Haley is to reportedly join Donald Trump on the campaign trail in a last-ditch attempt to win over Republicans alienated by the former president.
The former UN ambassador, who was beaten by Trump in the Republican primary this year, will likely appear at a town hall event towards the end of October, The Bulwark reports.
The event could be moderated by Sean Hannity, one of the former president’s favourite Fox News hosts, sources familiar with the discussions between the two camps said.
Trump is said to recognise that Ms Haley’s position as an establishment Republican could be a boost to his campaign with under three weeks until election day.
The former president is also aware that Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, has spent months trying to court Haley voters, according to reports.
However, one Trump adviser told the news outlet that they feared bad blood between the pair could stop the event going ahead. “I hope it happens,” they added.
Speaking on Fox News on Friday morning, the former president said: “Nikki is in, she’s helping us,” although stopped short of confirming if she would be campaigning on his behalf.
Ms Haley is thought to appeal to a sizeable chunk of the Republican party who have been alienated by Trump.
In the fight for the Republican presidential nomination this year, she fiercely criticised the former president for his isolationist instincts and tariffs policy, and suggested he was too old to return to the White House.
In the Pennsylvania primary, which is only open to registered GOP voters, she won 16 per cent of the vote – despite having dropped out of the race weeks previously.
The Democrats have spent months making overtures to Ms Haley in the hope of picking up disaffected Republicans, but she endorsed Trump at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in July following an assassination attempt on the former president.
Ms Haley has not appeared on the campaign trail for her former rival since then, and hinted at tensions in their relationship in a radio interview last month.
Trump repeatedly called his former UN ambassador a “birdbrain” during the primary contest, and questioned her husband’s absence from the campaign while he was deployed overseas with the army.
“I have not forgotten what he said about me,” Ms Haley told Sirius XM in September.
“I’ve not forgotten what he said about my husband or his… deployment time or his military service.
“I haven’t forgotten about his or his campaign’s tactics from, you know, putting a bird cage outside our hotel room to calling me ‘bird brain.’”
Ms Harris appeared on Fox News for an interview on Wednesday to appeal to “independents and Haley-style Republicans”, her campaign said this week.
The vice president launched a campaign to win over Haley supporters and convert GOP voters to her cause, by deploying Republicans to campaign on her behalf in swing states in August.
Austin Weatherford, Ms Harris’s national director of Republican outreach, said at the time that Trump is “toxic to millions of Republicans” and appealed to conservatives who “believe in putting country over party”.