FILE - Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, with former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, left, speaks at UN headquarters, July 20, 2018. Donald Trump said the two, who served in his first administration, will not serve in his second administration.
Trump says Haley, Pompeo will not join his administration
Washington —
President-elect Donald Trump said Saturday that former Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will not be asked to join his administration.
"I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump Administration, which is currently in formation," Trump posted on social media. "I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously, and would like to thank them for their service to our country."
Trump is meeting with potential candidates to serve in his administration before his January 20 inauguration as president. Reuters reported Friday that Trump met with prominent investor Scott Bessent, who is a potential U.S. Treasury Secretary nominee.
Haley, a former South Carolina governor who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, endorsed Trump for president despite having criticized him harshly when she ran against him in the party primaries.
Pompeo, who also served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Trump, has been mentioned in some media reports as a possible defense secretary and also had been seen a potential Republican presidential candidate, before he announced in April 2023 he would not run.
Haley and Pompeo could not immediately be reached for comment on Saturday.
During his first term as president, Trump made some key personnel announcements via social media posts.
Separately, Trump said the 2025 presidential inauguration will be co-chaired by real estate investor and campaign donor Steve Witkoff and former Senator Kelly Loeffler.
FILE - Kelly Ayotte smiles during a visit to a business in Manchester, New Hampshire, Oct. 16, 2024. Ayotte, who was just elected as New Hampshire's next governor, will be one of 13 female governors in the United States next year.
Record 13 women will be governors in US next year
The election of Republican Kelly Ayotte as New Hampshire's governor means 13 women will serve as a state's chief executive next year, breaking the record of 12 set after the 2022 elections.
Governors hold powerful sway in American politics, shaping state policy and often using the experience and profile gained to launch campaigns for higher offices.
"It matters to have women in those roles to normalize the image of women in political leadership and even more specifically in executive leadership, where they’re the sole leader, not just a member of a team," said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer was floated as a potential Democratic nominee for president after President Joe Biden exited the race. Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem was thought to be in the running for President-elect Donald Trump's vice presidential post.
Ayotte, a former U.S. senator, defeated the Democratic nominee Joyce Craig, a former mayor of Manchester, New Hampshire’s largest city.
Still, 18 states have never had a woman in the governor’s office.
"This is another side of political leadership where women continue to be underrepresented," Dittmar said. "Thirteen out of 50 is still underrepresentation."
With two women vying for governor in New Hampshire, a new record for female governors was inevitable. The state has a long history of electing women. As a senator, Ayotte was part of the nation’s first all-female congressional delegation. It was also the first state to have a female governor, state Senate president and House speaker at the same time, and the first to have a female majority in its Senate. Ayotte will be the state's third woman to be governor.
"Being a woman isn’t really that critical to her political persona," Linda Fowler, professor emerita of government at Dartmouth College, said of Ayotte.
Both Ayotte and Craig said their gender hasn’t come up on the campaign trail although reproductive rights often took front and center.
FILE - Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer delivers her State of the State address to a joint session of the House and Senate at the state Capitol in Lansing, Michigan, Jan. 25, 2023.
In her campaign, Craig attacked Ayotte’s record on abortion, and both candidates released TV ads detailing their own miscarriages. Ayotte said she will veto any bill further restricting abortion in New Hampshire where it is illegal after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
When Ayotte is sworn in, five Republican women will serve as governor at the same time, another new high. The other eight are Democrats.
New Hampshire's was one of the few competitive gubernatorial races among the 11 this year. More inroads or setbacks for women’s representation could come in 2026 when 36 states will elect governors.Most voters tend to cast their ballots based on party loyalty and ideology rather than gender, Dittmar said. However, she noted female candidates often face layers of scrutiny that male counterparts largely avoid, with voters judging such things as a woman's intelligence, appearance and even dating history with a sharper lens.
The small gain for women in governor’s offices comes as Vice President Kamala Harris failed in her effort to become the first female president.
"I would not suggest to you that Kamala Harris lost a race because she was a woman, because she was a Black and South Asian woman," Dittmar said. "We would also fail to tell the correct story if we didn’t acknowledge the ways in which both gender and race shapes the campaign overall, and also had a direct effect on how Kamala Harris was evaluated by voters, treated by her opponents and even in the media and other spaces."
Executive roles, especially the presidency with its associations like commander in chief, often carry masculine stereotypes that women must work harder to overcome, Dittmar said.
Experts say women confront these perceptions more acutely in executive races, such as for governor and president, than in state legislatures, where women are making historic strides as leaders, filling roles such as speaker and committee chairs.
"Sexism, racism, misogyny, it’s never the silver bullet. It’s never why one voter acts one way or another," said Erin Vilardi, CEO of Vote Run Lead, a left-leaning group that supports women running for state legislatures. "But we have so much of that built in to how we see a leader."
