First Haley, now Biden: Trump
Donald Trump’s advisers are urging him to stay focused on voters’ frustrations with Joe
Biden and stop complaining about his legal troubles after his crushing Republican primary win over Nikki Haley in South Carolina.
Trump decisively defeated his last serious GOP rival by a 20-point margin in her home state, where she was elected governor twice before joining the former president’s cabinet.
Haley has vowed to “keep fighting”, but Trump may have notched up an unassailable lead by “Super Tuesday” on March 5, by which point another 21 states and territories will have cast their ballots.
“I have never seen the Republican Party so unified as it is right now,” the 77-yearold told supporters at a victory party in Columbia, the state capital.
Trump aides said the Republican frontrunner was furious that Haley gave a premature speech in New Hampshire that allowed her to frame the night as a success, before the extent of her defeat was clear.
Determined to thwart a repeat, Trump stormed on to the stage mere moments after the polls closed to define the narrative of the night. “It’s an early evening,” he said, beaming to the audience and declining to mention Haley by name.
Instead, he focused on the presidential election, telling the crowd: “We’re going to be up here on November 5 and we’re going to look at Joe Biden ... and we’re going to say ‘Joe, you’re fired’.”
Trump was encouraged to stick to a script after a free-wheeling performance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland earlier in the day.
During his more than 90-minute speech to the Republican grassroots, he went on lengthy tangents, railing against his four criminal cases, which he dubbed “Stalinist show trials”.
Hours later in South Carolina, Trump’s team of veteran political operatives appeared to have convinced the former president to follow the teleprompter and stay focused on November’s election.
Senior Trump aides said they intended to “pivot” after the primary and attack Biden more than Haley.
Karoline Leavitt, the campaign’s national press secretary, suggested the GOP contest was over. “I think Nikki Haley already should have dropped out by now,” she said.
Andrew Boucher, chair of the Charleston Republican Party, said there had been demonstrable success in driving Republican voters’ focus to the presidential race.
“They are fired up. They’re angry with Joe Biden. That’s a motivated electorate on the Right side of the aisle and I think they’ll pay off big time in November.” – Telegraph Group