Nikki Haley: Vice president is ‘off the table’

AMHERST, New Hampshire — Nikki Haley says being vice president is “off the table.”

The declaration, delivered to a pair of diners at MaryAnn’s in Amherst and overheard by a POLITICO reporter on Friday, was one of Haley's most pointed remarks yet about her disinterest in the vice presidency.

That Haley, the former U.N. ambassador under Donald Trump, had not previously definitively ruled out being Trump’s running mate has been a source of concern for some anti-Trump voters in New Hampshire who are considering casting ballots for her next week. Even as she ramped up her attacks on her former boss, voters here have taken issue with Haley responding to questions about serving as Trump’s vice president by saying only that she doesn’t “play for second.”

But Haley now appears to be offering a sharper response. Take Friday, when Dan O’Donnell, a Hollis realtor sitting in a diner booth, asked Haley, who trails Trump by about 14 points on average in New Hampshire polls, if she was aiming for vice president:

“I’ve said from the very beginning: I don’t play for second. I don’t want to be anybody’s vice president. That is off the table,” Haley said, in a slightly irritated tone.

Haley was also more explicit about not wanting the No. 2 job in a WMUR interview earlier this week.

“I do not want to be vice president. Period. I don't know how many more times I can say that,” she told the local ABC affiliate.