Donald Trump appeared to confuse his Republican presidential rival Nikki Haley with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday when he lashed out at Haley, saying he would “probably” not select her as his running mate.
At a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, ahead of the state’s key primaries on Tuesday, Trump repeatedly referred to Haley as being responsible for security during the riot at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“By the way, they never report the crowd on January 6th. You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, you know, they – you know they destroyed all the information, all the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed everything. All of them,” Trump claimed without substantiation.
“Because of a lot of things, like Nikki Haley being in charge of security, we offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They rejected it. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”
President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign addressed the gaffe by posting a clip of Trump’s comment on X and noting, “A deeply confused Trump confuses Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley multiple times.”
At a rally in Concord, New Hampshire on Friday evening, Trump repeatedly referred to Nikki Haley as responsible for security during the riot at the US Capitol.
President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign pounced on the gaffe, posting a clip of Trump’s comment on X
Trump has long blamed Pelosi, a top Democrat, for the events of Jan. 6, when a mob of his supporters breached the Capitol and tried to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory.
Pelosi’s office has denied those claims, saying she had no more responsibility for Capitol security than then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican.
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com on Saturday morning.
At his event in Concord on Friday, Trump spent much of his speech disparaging Haley, saying he would “probably” not select her as a running mate.
“She’s not presidential wood,” Trump said. “If I say that now, it probably means she won’t be elected vice president.”
‘I know her very well. She’s not strong enough. She’s not smart enough. And she wasn’t respected enough. She can’t do this job,” Trump said. “She will not be able to deal with President Xi. She won’t be able to deal with Putin.”
Ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, Trump has stepped up his rhetorical attacks on Haley, his main challenger in the Granite State, where an open primary format gives independent voters an influential voice.
The last tracking poll of likely voters in New Hampshire’s Republican Party primaries show Trump with 52 percent support, followed by Haley with 35 percent.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, in a distant third place with 6 percent, has focused his resources on South Carolina, where his brand of culture warrior politics is seen as potentially gaining traction.
Donald Trump on Friday appeared to confuse his Republican presidential rival Nikki Haley (left) with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (right)
Trump has long blamed Pelosi for the events of January 6, when a mob of his supporters breached the Capitol and tried to stop the certification of Biden’s election victory.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump lashed out at Haley on Friday, mocking her birth name in racially charged taunts.
Trump repeatedly called Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India via Canada, “Nimbra,” and her first name was apparently misspelled.
Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa.
Since childhood, she has always used her middle name ‘Nikki’. She adopted the surname ‘Haley’ upon her 1996 marriage to Michael Haley.
Trump called Haley “Nimbra” three times in the same post on Friday, saying she “doesn’t have what it takes.”
Trump’s post was an escalation of recent attacks in which he referenced Haley’s first name — though he previously misspelled it as “Nimrada.”
He has also falsely suggested that she is ineligible to run for president because her parents were not U.S. citizens when she was born in 1972. Haley, who was a U.S. citizen at birth, meets the Constitution’s citizenship requirements for the presidency.
Haley has dismissed Trump’s latest attacks as evidence that she is threatening his bid for a third consecutive nomination.
“I’ll let people decide what he means by his attacks,” Haley told reporters in New Hampshire on Friday when asked about Trump’s false claims that her race disqualifies her from the Oval Office.
Trump repeatedly referred to Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India via Canada, as “Nimbra,” and an obvious misspelling of her first name
Senator Tim Scott appeared on stage with Donald Trump in Concord, New Hampshire, on Friday evening to endorse the former president’s race for the Republican nomination
“What we know is that he’s clearly insecure if he’s going to throw these tantrums, if he’s spending millions of dollars on TV. He is insecure, he knows something is wrong,” she added, according to the Associated Press.
Amid the controversy Friday, Trump received the support of Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, the Senate’s only black Republican, who made his own bid for the presidency but dropped out early.
Haley appointed Scott to the Senate in 2012, during her first term as governor.
Scott appeared on stage with Trump in Concord and fired up the crowd as he voiced his support for Trump.
“We need a president who sees Americans as one American family. We have…” Scott said, getting the crowd to roar, “Donald Trump.”
“And that’s why I came to the very warm state of New Hampshire to support US President Donald Trump’s next president.”
New Hampshire will hold the nation’s first primary elections on Tuesday. Haley in particular could struggle to continue her campaign if she finishes a distant second to the former president.