Donald Trump just gave Nikki Haley something big to worry about

“Well, he owns the Republican party. It’s his nomination. We have a lot of talented people in the Republican party, but I can tell you this, if the President Trump runs in 2024, he will be the nominee of this party.”

That’s what South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said on FOX News this week.

So when it’s reported that Trump doesn’t think much of your chances in today’s GOP, you probably have something to worry about.

Word is he currently doesn’t think much of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

In an interview with the Washington Post’s Carol Leonig and Philip Rucker in an excerpt from their new book, “I Alone Can Fix It,” featured Monday in Vanity Fair, the reporters write that Trump has “rebuffed” outreach from Haley, a would-be 2024 candidate.

According to their interview, Trump and Haley have parted ways.

“Nikki Haley wants to come here so badly,” Trump told the reporters from his home at Mar-A-Lago, his private Florida club.. “She did a little nasty couple of statements. ... She has been killed by the party. When they speak badly about me, the party is not happy about it. It’s pretty amazing. There’s not been anything like this.”

Haley’s spokeswoman declined to comment to The State’s reporter about any falling out. Haley, meanwhile, continues to make the rounds at fundraisers and events designed to help other GOP candidates get elected while raising her own profile.

Ultimately, though, she and other Republicans with an eye on the Oval Office have to consider what it means to be a Republican in 2021 and beyond because according to Senator Graham, Trump’s staunch advocate and frequent golfing buddy, it can only mean one thing - loyalty to Donald Trump.

Now, in April, Haley did say, “I would not run if President Trump ran,” adding she “had a great working relationship with him.”

But like the former president’s Atlantic City casino properties, that relationship in the past.

Haley and the others who performed poorly in the recent Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) presidential straw poll in Dallas have to face the present GOP they helped create.

They are in the running until Trump says they aren’t.

And for now at least, Nikki Haley isn’t.