Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Thursday that former President Donald Trump felt “threatened” and “insecure.” That’s why he’s put forward a “birther” conspiracy theory about her fitness to serve as president.
Haley appeared at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire on Thursday evening as she stormed the Granite State in hopes of loosening Trump’s grip on the Republican Party.
In recent weeks, Trump has pushed a racist theory suggesting that Haley, who was born in the United States, was ineligible to become commander in chief because her Indian immigrant parents were not yet U.S. citizens.
Haley, Trump’s former U.N. ambassador, responded by saying she is “the proud daughter of Bamberg, South Carolina, so I love my sweet city and I’m proud to say I’m from there.”
‘The name calls? I know Trump well,” the former South Carolina governor continued. ‘He does that when he feels threatened. He does that when he feels insecure.’
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley said Thursday that former President Donald Trump felt “threatened” and “insecure.” That’s why he has advanced a “birther” conspiracy theory about her fitness to serve as president.
Former President Donald Trump, seen during a campaign stop in New Hampshire earlier this week, pushed a “birther” conspiracy theory about Haley on his Truth Social website and misspelled her first name, Nimarata, as “Nimrada” in a social media post
‘I don’t take these things personally. It doesn’t bother me,” Haley added. ‘So for me it’s not going to waste energy. I’m going to continue to focus on the things people want to talk about and not talk to him in his name.”
In addition to pushing Truth Social, the “birther” conspiracy theory, Trump called Haley by her first name, Nimarata, but misspelled it.
“Anyone who listened to Nikki ‘Nimrada’ Haley’s deranged speech last night would think she won the Iowa caucuses,” Trump wrote in Truth Social on Tuesday. “She didn’t, and she couldn’t even beat the deeply flawed Ron DeSanctimonious, who’s out of money, out of hope.”
Trump and his allies have also gone after Haley because he had received some Democratic support.
“Democrats can vote. They’re going to vote for her because they don’t want to run against me, it’s a very simple system,” Trump claimed during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Thursday evening.
A New Hampshire voter asked Haley about that Tuesday night, explaining that it made him think that Democratic voters were crossing over to vote for Haley during the Republican primaries.
“First of all, I’ll tell you that we’ve been here for eleven months. We’ve had over 75, 80 town halls answering every question and shaking every hand. I’m the last person to leave. “I don’t ask people when they come in if they’re Republican, Democrat or independent,” she said.
Haley talked about how she’s getting support from conservative Don Bolduc, the failed 2022 Republican Senate candidate for New Hampshire, who has been a “pro-Trumper for a long time,” she said, adding that she also has the support from the moderate governor of New Hampshire. Chris Sununu.
CNN’s Jake Tapper (right) asked presidential candidate Nikki Haley (left) Thursday evening what a “win” would look like in New Hampshire and whether it meant she could come in second place. The first primaries in New Hampshire will take place on Tuesday
Independents have come our way, Haley continued.
Democrats, Haley explained, have come her way because they are dissatisfied with President Joe Biden.
“What I want everyone here to remember is that Republicans lost the last seven of the eight popular votes for president. That’s nothing to be proud of,” she said.
“If you want to win over the majority of Americans, you have to make sure that as a leader you don’t decide who is good and who is bad, who is right and who is wrong,” she said.
‘What I do is tell people what I am for. If independents and conservatives and moderate Republicans like that, then I think that’s great. “If conservative Democrats say I want to go back to the Republican Party because they left it, then I want them back,” Haley continued.
The ex-ambassador said she would never target progressives.
“They’ll never be anything to me,” she said. “But what I will do is I want the younger voter, I want those moderates, I want those independents, I want them to come back to the Republican Party because this is how we win.”
Haley, who is still behind Trump in most polls in New Hampshire but within reach, also spelled out what a “win” would look like Tuesday night in the nation’s first-ever primary.
“Look, I said from the beginning that we wanted to be strong in Iowa, we wanted to be stronger in New Hampshire and we want to be even stronger in my great state of South Carolina,” she said.
Haley finished in third place in the Iowa caucuses, just behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose second place was 30 points behind front-runner Trump.
DeSantis was endorsed by Iowa’s popular GOP Governor Kim Reynolds and traveled to all 99 counties, while Haley spent more time on the second contest, the New Hampshire primary.
CNN’s Jake Tapper pointed out that any Republican candidate who won both Iowa and New Hampshire clinched the Republican nomination.
“So you named the past and all hes. I’m talking about the side,” Haley said. “She’s going to move forward and finish this race.”
She said she wanted to perform stronger than in Iowa, but declined to say whether that meant first place.
“We won’t know what strong looks like until those numbers come in,” Haley said.