- Sen. Lindsey Graham said Nikki Haley may hurt her chances of being Trump's VP running mate.
- Graham said the longer his fellow South Carolinian challenged Trump, "the more scar tissue accumulates."
Sen. Lindsey Graham has a message for his fellow South Carolinian Nikki Haley if the former UN ambassador wants to eventually become former President Donald Trump's running mate.
"I think he would pick her if he thought it would help him win," Graham told Politico's Jonathan Martin. "But the longer it goes and the more scar tissue accumulates, the less likely it is."
Haley and her campaign have tried to portray the GOP primary race as a one-on-one contest between her and Trump following the Iowa caucuses. Haley, who finished in third behind Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, is hoping the electorate in New Hampshire, more favorable to her, will power a strong finish there.
It should be noted that Trump still leads by double digits in the state ahead of Tuesday's primary. He already won the Iowa caucuses by an unprecedented margin.
Haley has repeatedly emphasized that her focus is on winning the nomination. She has also sternly rejected the notion that she wants to be vice president.
"I'm not playing Chris' game. I have said over and over and over again. I do not want to be vice president, period," Haley told WMUR, a New Hampshire TV station, earlier this week, referring to former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey. "I don't know how many more times I can say that."
In the meantime, some Trump allies are assailing Haley, saying that she's unfit to be on a Trump-led ticket because of her foreign-policy views.
"Nikki Haley as VP would be an establishment neocon fantasy and a MAGA nightmare," Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican, told Politico. "On day one, she would convert the Naval Observatory into an anti-Trump resistance headquarters, undermining him at every step."
Graham, who advocates a more interventionist foreign policy, said these people were "isolationists in MAGAworld."
"The same people who don't like her don't like me," he said.