With Ron DeSantis conveniently out of the GOP primary race, Donald Trump set his sights on Nikki Haley, his nearest opponent who still trails him by double-digits in the polls. The former South Carolina governor and Trump cabinet member has recently questioned the former president’s mental fitness after he confused her name with Nancy Pelosi’s at a rally.
“Here in New Hampshire, Nikki Haley has made an unholy alliance with RINOs, Never Trumpers, Americans for No Prosperity,” Trump said, referring to Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group that endorsed Haley in December. “Did you ever hear of Americans for No Prosperity? I added the word ‘no’ because that’s essentially what they do. I was gonna say Americans for China Prosperity… They’re headed up by bad people — globalists, radical left communists — to get liberals and Biden supporters to vote for her.”
Haley this weekend gave multiple interviews where she raised the issue of Trump’s mental fitness. “[Trump] claimed that Joe Biden was going to get us into World War II. I’m assuming he meant World War III,” Haley said on Sunday’s Face the Nation. “He said that he ran against President Obama. He never ran against President Obama. He says that I’m the one that kept security from the Capitol on Jan. 6. I was nowhere near the Capitol on Jan. 6.”
Later in his speech, Trump addressed the question of his cognitive abilities. He claimed that Haley “stabbed the Republican Party in the back by siding with Barack Hussein Obama against the Trump travel ban.”
Trump continued, “I have to be very careful when I say Obama’s name because the fake news, they say, ‘Did you ever realize that he gets the name Barack Obama confused with Biden?’ You know, they’re trying to say, ‘He’s cognitively impaired.’ And I use it because I figure Barack Hussein Obama is probably running things by the people I’ve seen.”
Trump quickly pivoted to attacking Biden, claiming the president is “falling asleep” during his speeches. But he didn’t address his confusing of Haley with former House speaker Nancy Pelosi or how he lost count of how many world wars there have been.
During his rally speech, Trump also attacked New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu, who has endorsed Haley, calling him the “most overrated governor.”
“This governor, we gotta get him outta here. He’s a big Nikki guy… It makes sense. When I heard that, it made sense,” Trump said.
New Hampshire primary voters will head to the polls on Tuesday. He told the Rochester, N.H., crowd that he, not Biden, is the reason the state has the first primary in the country.
“You know why you’re first in the nation? Because of me!” Trump boasted.
Trump quickly returned to bashing Haley. “The people behind Nikki are pro-amnesty — you like that? — pro-China, pro-open borders, pro-war, pro-deep state, and they’re pro-Biden. Did you see where 50 percent of the people that voted for her in Iowa are voting for Biden? In other words they’re Democrats. They’re gonna vote for Biden. They just had no choice, so they picked her.”
He added, “The radical Democrats are supporting Nikki Haley for one reason: They know she’s easy to beat…She’s unelectable.”
He also attacked Haley on one of his pet issues: the U.S.-Mexico border wall. “Nikki Haley — globalist — will never secure the border or stop the fentanyl that is killing thousands of New Hampshire citizens. You know that. Nikki opposed my border wall, you know, she fought me on the border wall. I said, ‘What the hell is this woman doing?’”
When discussing his legal woes, Trump claimed to have been “indicted more than Alphonse Capone, Al Capone.” He later added, “I’ve got like eight of them, civil cases, all kinds of cases… We have every kind of case you can think of.”
Following his New Hampshire speech, Trump said he will head back to New York, where he plans to attend a hearing in E. Jean Carroll’s civil case against him on Monday. Trump told the crowd that Carroll is pursuing legal action based on “a totally fabricated story,” despite the courts siding with Carroll multiple times and ruling that he owes her millions in damages.
Source link: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-attacks-nikki-haley-mental-fitness-1234950770/