He speculated that Ms. Haley's donors are "preparing for a No Labels ticket that then takes votes from Donald Trump away in that general election."

He went further in a press conference afterwards, criticizing the billionaire Koch family's libertarian policy advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Action, for backing Ms. Haley and opposing President Trump.

"I think it's very disappointing that that network has thrown its support behind a candidate who does not even stand for the principles that they claim to embody," he told The Epoch Times.

He cited Ms. Haley's stance on Ukraine funding and her call for an end to anonymous social media accounts as examples of proposals that are inconsistent with those principles.

President's Trump's views, he argued, are "far more aligned with what AFP claims to stand for."

He also lauded Chris Maidment, a former AFP staffer who left the network after it threw its weight behind Ms. Haley. Mr. Maidment was fired by AFP for publicly speaking out against its backing for Ms. Haley.

"Nikki Haley is totally sideways on [AFP]'s foreign policy stance. She's anti-free speech," Mr. Maidment wrote on X on Dec. 1, 2023, as part of a thread distancing himself from AFP's Haley endorsement.

"I congratulate the guys like Chris Maidment or others who have worked there who have been vocal and brave enough to criticize their own decision, saying it betrayed their own principles. It'll be people like that that can actually restore that sanity and that sense of purpose," Mr. Ramaswamy said.

But he stressed that "people make mistakes."

"I invite them to reconsider their decision ... And you know what? I'm optimistic that, with some forethought, they actually will," Mr. Ramaswamy said.