- Haley called for not to be ‘obsessed with the past’
- She spoke in South Carolina while trailing Donald Trump by 20 points
- She warned against demonizing rhetoric
Nikki Haley addressed both Joe Biden and Donald Trump in her speech on Saturday night after losing her home state to Trump, denouncing the “obsession” over the past few moments after Trump revisited his claims about the 2020 election fraud.
She made the comment while trailing Trump by 20 points in early returns, after Trump spoke in his own victory speech about his “lead” over Biden disappearing in 2020 as additional returns came in in battleground states.
“We won’t get out of our downward spiral if we continue to obsess over the past,” Haley told a crowd of supporters.
“Does anyone seriously think that Joe Biden or Donald Trump will unite our country to solve our problems? One of them calls his compatriots fascists. The other calls his fellow countrymen vermin. They are not fighting for the future of our province. They demand that we fight each other,” she said.
Nikki Haley calls on rivals to stop obsessing over the past
She was referring to Biden’s 2022 denunciation of what he called “extreme MAGA philosophy.”
In her speech Saturday evening, Haley pointed out that she received about 40 percent of the vote, which she said was enough to advance. Soon after, her total dropped to 38 percent
“It’s not just Trump, it’s the whole philosophy that underpins the – I’m going to say something, it’s like semi-fascism,” he said in a comment that drew comparisons to Hillary Clinton’s infamous “basket of deplorables” – language to describe Trump supporters.
Trump last year used the terms “vermin” to describe migrants who are “poisoning the blood of the US,” in language that critics associated with similar language from Adolf Hitler.
If Haley wanted to charge someone for attacking fascists, she could also have pointed to Saturday afternoon, where Trump again used the term to describe Biden supporters. “He’s surrounded by some very bad fascists,” Trump said at CPAC.
‘I would rather lose my freedom than surrender to this group. of criminals and tyrants, fascist thugs and scoundrels,” Trump said, after going after Biden and “deranged prosecutors” whom he blamed for his criminal charges.
Trump also repeated multiple claims of election fraud in 2020, when courts rejected claims by his allies and he lost the popular vote by 7 million votes.
Donald Trump raised his claims of election fraud Saturday afternoon and evening, even as he accepted the incoming results in South Carolina
President Biden compared MAGA to ‘semi-fascism’
Haley has gone after both her opponents’ ages and shouted obsession with the past. Trump twice invoked his claims of election fraud in 2020 on Saturday
“And in 2020, they cheated like dogs, and we all know it,” Trump said.
During his victory speech, Trump also pointed to states he contested in 2020.
“We are a leader in Pennsylvania. And suddenly nothing happened. It went boom. And then we tour all of Georgia and then boom,” Trump said.
Haley’s comments about being “obsessed” with the past fit with her general criticism of her rivals for their age, sometimes calling them two “80-year-olds.” Biden is 81, Trump is 77 and Haley is 52.