After Trump appears to confuse her with Nancy Pelosi, Nikki Haley asks: Is the former president ok?
KEENE, N.H. - A day after Donald Trump repeatedly cited Nikki Haley when talking about former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the real Haley offered a theory as to why: maybe the GOP frontrunner is not mentally fit?
"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 - we can’t," Haley, 52, told supporters in Keene, N.H., referring to the 77-year-old former president.
Her criticism follows some seemingly rambling comments Trump made about Haley while he was at a rally in New Hampshire, where he appears to be consolidating his lead against his rivals ahead of Tuesday's highly anticipated, first-in-the nation primary. He was referring to security of the U.S. Capitol before the insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021
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"Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security," Trump told supporters at a Concord rally. "We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”
Trump's argument over Jan. 6 security was with Pelosi ? and his claim that she rejected his request of deploying 10,000 National Guard troops that day has been debunked.
In her response, Haley noted that she wasn't even in Washington on Jan. 6.
"He was on a temper tantrum about me, which is fine," said Haley, who is fighting hard for a strong second place in a race Trump is expected to win
"He does that often, but he went on and talked about how I kept the police from going into the Capitol on Jan. 6, went on and repeated that I didn’t do anything to secure the Capitol,” Haley added.
'He got confused'
“Let’s be clear. I wasn’t in the Capitol on Jan. 6. I wasn’t in office on January 6th. He mentioned it three times,'' Haley said. ''He got confused."
Both Trump and Haley have showed gains in new polls released Sunday. Trump increased his lead over Haley by 2 points, to 19%, according to the latest Suffolk University/NBC10 Boston/Boston Globe daily tracking poll. Trump now leads by 55% to 36%; DeSantis is polling at 6%.
Seeking to narrow that gap with the GOP frontrunner, Haley dug in on whether Trump is mentally fit.“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.”
Contributing: Associated Press
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump mixes up Nancy Pelosi and Nikki Haley at a New Hampshire rally