Haley tears into Trump’s age, mental acuity
Nikki Haley pressed her attack on Donald Trump’s age and mental fitness over the weekend as she seeks an upset win in the New Hampshire Republican primary.
“He’s just not at the same level he was in 2016,” the former South Carolina governor said Sunday of Trump on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I think we’re seeing some of that decline.”
Haley, 52, has mostly steered clear of strong attacks on the 77-year-old former president, whom she served as United Nations ambassador. But she seized on Trump’s mental acuity after he repeatedly appeared to confuse her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at a rally Friday night.
Her shift in tone comes as the critical vote looms Tuesday. A new CNN poll shows that Trump holds 50% of support among likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire and 39% for Haley.
On CBS, Haley ticked off “multiple” examples of Trump possibly being “confused.”
“He claimed that Joe Biden was going to get us into World War II. I’m assuming he meant World War III,” she said. “He said that he ran against President Obama. He never ran against President Obama. He says that I’m the one that kept security from the Capitol on January 6th [, 2021]. I was nowhere near the Capitol on January 6th.”
“Don’t be surprised if you have someone that’s 80 in office, their mental stability is going to continue to decline,” Haley said.
“It should be enough to send us a warning sign,” she said. “Joe Biden, he’s very different than he was two years ago.”
Biden, 81, added his voice to the tumult over Trump’s repeated assertions that Haley was responsible for security on Jan. 6.
“I don’t agree with Nikki Haley on everything, but we agree on this much: She is not Nancy Pelosi,” Biden said on X, formerly Twitter.
Trump first said Haley turned down security offered by his administration on Jan. 6 and then again mentioned Haley, adding, “They destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it.”
Trump, 77, has accused Pelosi of turning down security he says his administration offered, but a special House committee empaneled to investigate the attack found no evidence to support that claim.
“They’re saying he got confused, that he was talking about something else. He’s talking about Nancy Pelosi,” Haley said on Saturday.
“He mentioned me multiple times in that scenario. The concern I have is — I’m not saying anything derogatory — but when you’re dealing with the pressures of the presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this,” Haley said. “We can’t.”
At his rally Saturday night in Manchester, Trump said he took a cognitive test and “aced it.”
“I’ll let you know when I go bad. I really think I’ll be able to tell you,” he added. “I feel my mind is stronger now than it was 25 years ago. Is that possible?”
New Hampshire so far presents the strongest opportunity for Haley to upset Trump, owing to the state’s more moderate electorate and the ability of undeclared voters to participate in the GOP primary.
But even if she defies the polls and wins in New Hampshire, Haley faces a steep climb toward the GOP nomination. Other polls show Trump dominating around the nation, including in her home state of South Carolina. That primary is Feb. 24.