US President-elect Donald Trump announced Sunday that his former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would not be part of his new administration, excluding two prominent Republicans from his second term in office. White House.

“I will not invite former Ambassador Nikki Haley, or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, to join the Trump administration, now in formation,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “I have greatly enjoyed working with them before and would like to thank them for their service to our country.”

Nikki Haley, of Indian origin, former governor of South Carolina, ran against Trump in the Republican primariesharshly criticizing him and presenting herself as the candidate best placed to defeat Joe Biden. However, after leaving the race in March, Haley endorsed Trump for president.

In a statement in August, she expressed her lack of interest in serving in a new Trump administration, saying, “The campaign was never about one position.”

Last week, Haley reiterated her support for Trump in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, he wrote: “I don’t agree with Mr. Trump 100 percent of the time, but I agree with him most of the time, and I disagree with Mrs. Harris almost all the time. It makes the call easy.”

Mike Pompeo, who served as both CIA director and secretary of state under Trump, also endorsed the 78-year-old Republican, although he initially refrained from giving him strong support.

Both Haley and Pompeo were considered strong candidates for positions in Trump’s new Cabinet.

Since his landslide victory against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump and his team have been working to staff his new White House team.

Trump met with potential candidates for his administration before his January 20 inauguration. He would seek to recruit a billionaire investor Scott Bessent for Treasury Secretaryand named his 2024 campaign co-chair, Susie Wiles, as the new White House chief of staff.