Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as White House communications director under the Trump administration, criticized former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley for supporting former President Trump, saying “her decision has no backbone.”
“She knows the risks,” Scaramucci added in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
“She’s smarter than what she’s doing now, but her decisions have no backbone,” he said Friday. In an interview “She’s obviously been influenced by campaign officials and campaign consultants who are telling her, ‘Hey, you should support Donald Trump.’ [or] “You have no future in that party.”
The criticism comes after Haley, who was Trump’s main rival in the 2024 primary election but dropped out in March and said earlier this week that she would support Trump over Biden in the next election.
“Trump was not perfect on these policies, and I’ve made that clear many times,” she said in a speech at the conservative Hudson Institute, “But Biden was a disaster, and that’s why I’m voting for Trump.”
Scaramucci countered by saying he should have continued in the campaign because he received at least 20% of the vote from Trump in the primary.
“The protest vote was an attack on President Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) wall of support,” possibly a reference to Haley’s victory in Maryland’s Republican primary and her 18 percent support in Nebraska’s primary earlier this month.
After Biden, the former Republican candidate, suspended his campaign, he declined to endorse Trump, instead arguing that Trump must “earn” support from his supporters — a claim the Biden campaign quickly seized on to focus on winning over Republicans unhappy with the former president.
Asked what the incumbent president should do to win over those voters, Scaramucci suggested Biden say, “This is a binary election. Democracy comes first. Are you a patriot first and partisan last? Join us to keep this political system, this great American experiment, working for the American people as it has for the last 250 years.”
Scaramucci is not the only one to criticize Secretary of State Haley for her subtle endorsement of Trump.
“I’m not surprised, but it’s embarrassing,” said former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). Haley’s former South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), also denounced the move, saying, “Here we have someone who clearly wants to be relevant in 2028.”
But Trump responded to the endorsement by suggesting Haley could join his team.
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