San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
HALEY QUESTIONS EX-PRESIDENT’S MENTAL FITNESS, CITING N.H. FLUB
Suggests Trump is ‘in decline’ after he mixed up her, Pelosi
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley on Saturday aggressively questioned former President Donald Trump’s mental fitness, seizing on a flub at a rally in which Trump repeatedly called Nancy Pelosi by Haley’s name when attacking the former House speaker.
Trump’s mix-up Friday night came as he repeated unsubstantiated claims that he made a “recommendation for troops” to be brought in to quell the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol while Pelosi was derelict in her duties as speaker when it came to keeping the complex safe.
Instead of targeting Pelosi by name, as he has in the past, Trump repeatedly referred to “Nikki Haley” during his remarks in Concord, N.H., ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary.
“Do we really want to go into an election with two fellas that are going to be president in their 80s?” Haley said at a stop Saturday in Keene, N.H., referring to Trump, who will be 78 in June, and President Joe Biden, 81.
“We see that Biden has changed so much over two years,” Haley said. “But last night Trump is at a rally, and he’s going on and on mentioning me multiple times as to why I didn’t [handle] security during the Capitol riot, why I didn’t handle Jan. 6 better,” Haley said. “I wasn’t even in D.C. on Jan. 6. I wasn’t in office then.”
“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 this,” Haley added.
Haley echoed those sentiments during an event in Peterborough and again when speaking to reporters afterward, suggesting that
there were other signs of Trump’s decline.
“You know, my parents are up in age, and I love them dearly,” she said when asked directly if Trump is mentally fit to be president. “But when you see them hit a certain age, there is a decline. That’s a fact, ask any doctor, there is a decline. And this is a situation where our country is very vulnerable right now.”
Haley also noted that Trump erroneously referred to running against former President Barack Obama and implored the audience not to “put our country at risk like this.”
“This is not personal,”
Haley said. “Y’all know I voted for him twice. I was proud to serve in his administration. This is the fact that we have a country in disarray and a world on fire. And we need to know that we are not giving our kids options of two 80-year-olds going into a presidency.”
Republican New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a top supporter of Haley, also raised questions Saturday about Trump’s mental fitness.
“Donald Trump can barely keep a cogent thought if he takes his eyes off a teleprompter, very similar to Joe Biden,” Sununu told reporters.
During his rally on Friday night, Trump repeated his claim that he made a “recommendation for troops” on Jan. 6, 2021. The House select committee that investigated Jan. 6 found “no evidence” to support his claim. Trump has alleged that information corroborating his claim was destroyed but has presented no evidence of that.
“You know Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, did you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything?” Trump told his crowd Friday. “Deleted it and destroyed all of it because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people.”
Democrats and Trump’s other GOP rivals have increasingly highlighted his verbal stumbles.
Earlier this week during a campaign stop in Londonderry, N.H., Florida Gov. Ron Desantis suggested Trump is declining.
“What Donald Trump does now is, he is wedded to the teleprompter; he can’t get off that teleprompter,” Desantis said. “This is a different Donald Trump than in 2015 and 2016. He’s lost the zip on his fastball.”