There has been another unexpected twist in the plans for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee which kicks off tomorrow. It's been revealed that Former South Carolina Governor and Republican Presidential primary candidate Nikki Haley has been invited to speak at the convention. As recently as last week, one of Haley's senior aides told reporters that Haley had not even been invited to attend the convention, to say nothing of being a speaker. The invitation reportedly went out earlier this week, so this was a last-minute decision and it almost certainly had to have been approved by Donald Trump. We don't yet have confirmation as to whether Haley will accept the invitation. (NBC News)

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley has been invited to speak at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee next week, according to two sources familiar with the decision, who said details had not yet been finalized.

The Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign and Haley's team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The invitation appears to have come within the past few days.

On Tuesday, Haley released her 97 delegates so they could support Trump at the convention.

This decision is a smart one if these reports prove to be accurate. The primary ended with a great deal of animosity between Trump and Haley for obvious reasons. But the general election is still looking as if it will be close, so Trump really needs Haley's supporters to turn out for him. Her support (such as it was) largely seemed to come from never-Trumpers, so they might not all go along with the idea, but if even a portion of them do, that could be a significant factor in Trump's favor. If the two of them can find a way to figuratively "kiss and make up," it will feed into the RNC's overriding message of the need to fully unite the party behind Trump and drive Joe Biden from office in November.

That may not be easy to do, however. Haley generated a lot of animosity during the primary, trashing Trump in the debates and stubbornly remaining in the race long past the point where both the previous voting and the polls indicated that she was no longer viable. All of the other hopefuls, including Ron DeSantis dropped out when it became obvious that Trump was the nominee by default. After she finally withdrew, Haley mostly disappeared from the scene for a time.

For her part, she has recently seemed to make the effort to mend the bridge between her and Trump. On Tuesday, she released her delegates so they will be able to vote for Trump this week on the first ballot. She also released a statement saying that she plans to vote for Trump and that she "wishes him the best." That may or may not be enough to persuade a sizable percentage of her supporters to get with the program.

Keep in mind that all of this activity took place before the assassination attempt yesterday. It's possible that even some of Trump's critics inside his own party may see this moment as a reason to set aside their inherent distaste for Trump's personality and focus on his policies. Haley's supporters were clearly okay with her more pre-MAGA neocon positions, but that doesn't mean that they would automatically default to supporting Joe Biden. The results of their two presidencies are as different as night and day, and it seems unlikely that anyone who was even considering voting for any Republican would try to make the argument that things have worked out better under Joe Biden. We'll need to keep an eye out for any potential shift in the polling after the convention, but Trump and the GOP probably made the right call by trying to rebuild their ties with Haley and her supporters.