Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley ratcheted up the rhetoric against her top rival, former President Donald Trump, by questioning his mental fitness on Saturday.
The swipe took place in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary this week after Trump recently mixed up Haley’s name with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) when talking about security during the U.S. Capitol breach on January 6, 2021.
“Last night, Trump is at a rally and he’s going on and on mentioning me multiple times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capitol riots. Why I didn’t handle January 6 better. I wasn’t even in D.C. on January 6. I wasn’t in office then,” Haley told a crowd in New Hampshire.
“They’re saying he got confused. That he was talking about something else. That he was talking about Nancy Pelosi. He mentioned me multiple times in that scenario,” Haley continued. “The concern I have is — I’m not saying anything derogatory, but when you’re dealing with the pressures of a presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do it. We can’t.”
The comments in question took place at a rally on Friday, when Trump pivoted from mocking Haley over the size of her crowds to discussing the events of January 6, according to The New York Times.
“Nikki Haley was in charge of security,” Trump said in New Hampshire. “We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that.”
New Hampshire Chris Sununu, a Republican who has endorsed Haley, said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” on Sunday that Trump “has lost his fastball.”
Last week, Trump won the Iowa caucuses while Haley got third place, right behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. New Hampshire is next on Tuesday, where polling shows Trump in the lead but Haley catching up as the day nears.
At an event on Saturday, Trump said that he “aced” a cognitive test and promised to “let you know when I go bad,” CNN reported.
Haley, 52, served as a South Carolina governor who became the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration. She began her campaign last February by pushing for younger leadership in lieu of a rematch between Trump, who is now 77, and President Joe Biden, who is now 81.
“In the America I see, the permanent politician will finally retire,” Haley said. “We’ll have term limits for Congress and mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.”
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