The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump suggests Haley out as his VP as insults fly
Donald Trump suggested Nikki Haley was out of the running to be his vice presidential pick, as the two traded some of their sharpest barbs yet with the New Hampshire primary just days away. Trump at a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, on Friday evening said Haley was “OK” when serving as his U.N. ambassador but was not “presidential” material. “Now when I say that, that probably means that she’s not going to be chosen as the vice president,” he added.
“She’s not tough enough. She’s not smart enough. And she wasn’t respected enough. She cannot do this job. She’s not going to be able to deal with President Xi. She’s not going to be able to deal with Putin and Kim Jong Un,” Trump said referring to the leaders of China, Russia and North Korea.
Haley served as U.N. ambassador under Trump and the two fell out after she announced that she would run for the Republican nomination.
Haley has said she does not have interest in being Trump’s running mate.
Trading jabs
Trump and Haley spent Friday trading insults. Polls released show Haley still trailing Trump by double digits in New Hampshire, whose primary is shaping up as a make-or-break moment for her campaign.
Haley has focused her resources on the state and spent Friday campaigning with its governor, Chris Sununu. She assailed Trump earlier in the day, accusing him of “telling a whole lot of lies.”
“If he’s gonna lie about me, I’m gonna tell the truth about him,” she added.
Tim Scott endorses Trump
Trump received the endorsement of U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, who ended his bid for the GOP nomination.
The endorsement is a direct blow to Haley, who as governor of South Carolina appointed Scott to the Senate in 2012.
Scott has been seen as one of Trump’s options for vice president, along with U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who introduced the GOP front-runner at Friday’s rally.
Trump mocks Haley’s name
Donald Trump used his social media platform Friday to mock Nikki Haley’s birth name.
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump repeatedly referred to Haley, the daughter of immigrants from India, as “Nimbra.” Haley was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, as Nimarata Nikki Randhawa. She has always gone by her middle name. She took the surname “Haley” upon her marriage in 1996.
Trump, himself the son, grandson and twice the husband of immigrants, called Haley “Nimbra” three times in the post.
Haley ad features mom of student who died after being held by North Korea
Haley is making part of her closing argument to New Hampshire with supportive words from the mother of Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died in 2017 after being imprisoned by North Korea. In a three-minute TV ad, Cindy Warmbier says that Haley, while serving as U.N. ambassador, “told us to be loud and fight back, to fight for justice.”
Otto Warmbier, 22, was released by North Korea while in a coma after almost a year and a half in captivity, and he died days after returning to the United States.
DeSantis is all in on South Carolina
Ron DeSantis is turning his sights to South Carolina, moving much of his presidential campaign staff there and assuring allies that he plans to stay in the Republican race for that late February contest after effectively surrendering in New Hampshire.
But the Florida governor’s path to the GOP nomination is bleaker than ever, with Trump cracking 50% of the vote in Iowa last week and Haley polling ahead of DeSantis in her home state.
In New Hampshire, DeSantis has become an afterthought, tumbling into the single-digits in public polls and expected to finish a distant third.
DeSantis finished a distant second in Iowa. GOP contests in Nevada and Michigan, set for February and early March, are likely to boost Trump with rules widely viewed as favorable to him. With a large share of delegates awarded on Super Tuesday on March 5, DeSantis would have little time after South Carolina to stop Trump’s momentum.
Trump confuses Haley and Pelosi, blaming GOP rival for Jan. 6 lapse in security
Trump on Friday appeared to confuse Haley for Nancy Pelosi during a speech in New Hampshire, accusing Haley of failing to provide adequate security during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol and connecting her to the House committee that investigated it.
Hale has never served in Congress and was working in the private sector during the Capitol riot.
On Friday night, Trump was in the middle of mocking Haley for the size of the crowds at her events, and criticizing the news media, when he pivoted to how he gave a speech in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, that preceded the Capitol attack.
“You know, when she comes here she gets like nine people, and the press never reports the crowds,” Trump said of Haley, whose crowds have lately been, at the very least, in double digits.
Then, he changed subjects. “You know, by the way, they never report the crowd on Jan. 6,” he said. “You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley.”
Trump then repeated his frequent claim that the bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack — including Trump’s actions that day — “destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence.”
Then, he claimed that Haley was in charge of security that day, and that she and others had turned down his offer to send troops to the Capitol.
“Nikki Haley was in charge of security,” he said. She was not.
“We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guards, whatever they want,” Trump said. “They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that.”
Trump, 77, often attacks President Joe Biden, 81, over his age and suggests that Biden is mentally unfit for office. “He can’t put two sentences together,” Trump said Friday. “Can’t put two sentences together. He needs a teleprompter.”
Trump has frequently tried to lay blame for the Jan. 6 riot on Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats. There is no evidence that Trump offered to have troops deployed to the Capitol, or that Pelosi, then speaker of the House, rejected them.