Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley attacked former President Donald Trump for his “reckless spending” as president.
Haley further embittered herself to her onetime boss while giving a speech in New Hampshire on her economic policy. After first criticizing President Joe Biden for adding to the national debt as president, she laid equal blame at the feet of his predecessors, including Trump.
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“Joe Biden is proving reckless spending is the road to socialism. But he’s not the only culprit,” she said. “Joe Biden, Donald Trump, and Barack Obama added more to our national debt than the previous 42 presidents combined.”
She contrasted the spending with her own policy, with plans to implement various tax and subsidy cuts while returning spending to a pre-COVID-19 pandemic level.
Her attack against Trump is the second serious hit in two days. On Thursday, she blasted his presidential leadership style and stance on the war in Ukraine.
“He was thin-skinned and easily distracted,” she said of her former boss.
“He didn’t do anything on fiscal policy and really spent a lot of money, and we are all paying the price for it. He did a better job than Biden on the border. He used to be good on foreign policy, and now he has started to walk it back and get weak in the knees when it comes to Ukraine,” she added.
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Her dig at Trump shows her increasing willingness to make bolder attacks against him. The two were on good terms for some time after the end of his administration, but they have increasingly come to blows as they face off in the 2024 Republican primary.
Despite her efforts, Haley has continued to lag far behind in the polls. Trump has continued his rise after a lull last November, and recent polls give him the highest share of the vote since the summer of 2022. An Emerson poll, taken Sept. 18-19, had Haley in sixth place with just 3% of the Republican vote. Trump took 59%, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) continued his decline at 12%, Vivek Ramaswamy was at 7%, and former Vice President Mike Pence and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie each garnered 5%.
