Former Republican South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley accused former President Donald Trump of hiding from the debate stage and using tactics similar to those of President Joe Biden.
Haley accused Trump of not confronting other GOP presidential candidates and fought back against accusations by some of her competitors that she is playing for second place behind Trump. The comments came while she was on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom on Wednesday.
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“I don’t play for second, I never have,” Haley said. “I’m not going to do it now. We are now in second place in Iowa, second place in New Hampshire, and second place in South Carolina. We’ve got one more fellow to catch up to, and the momentum is growing.”
“We can feel it on the ground in here in New Hampshire, we can feel it in Iowa, and we’re going to keep working,” Haley said. “Look, President Trump would have loved to have AFP’s endorsement — everybody wants the largest conservative grassroots organization in America. That’s millions of people on the ground in all of the early states that want to see a change in our country. And so I think President Trump would have loved to have that endorsement.”
Haley directly responded to former Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s claim that she is not running against the former president by saying she wants him on the debate stage and alleging that chaos follows Trump.
“I’m running against President Trump,” Haley said. “I’m waiting for him to get on a debate stage … He can’t start acting like President Biden. He needs to get on the debate stage. He needs to confront us. He needs to let us talk about the differences and go forward.”
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“The truth is you have to face facts,” she added. “I think President Trump was the right president at the right time, I agree with a lot of his policies, but the truth of everything is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. Chaos follows him. Everybody knows that, and with our country divided and the world on fire, we can’t live in chaos anymore.”
Trump leads the GOP field nationally and in the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. Haley is in second in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and she is in third in Iowa and nationally.
