Former President Donald Trump‘s 2024 campaign wasted no time going after his first official major GOP rival Nikki Haley following her campaign kick-off speech Wednesday.
Trump himself has been surprisingly quiet on Haley’s foray into the 2024 arena. Still, his campaign issued a scathing rebuke of her track record Wednesday afternoon, chastising her for flip-flopping in the past and tying her to Hillary Clinton and former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).
NIKKI HALEY TAKES SWING AT POLITICIANS ‘PAST’ THEIR ‘PRIME’ IN 2024 LAUNCH SPEECH
Haley, a former United Nations ambassador and governor of South Carolina, has largely refrained from calling Trump out by name. Though she did take subtle shots at him during her speech Wednesday, calling for a new generation of leadership and throwing shade at politicians past their “prime.”
In its disparagement of Haley, titled “The Real Nikki Haley” and rolled out in an email blast, the Trump campaign highlighted a past interview Haley gave with the New York Times in 2012, describing Clinton as an inspiration for her to run.
The Trump campaign immediately out with an email, “The Real Nikki Haley.”
First lines: “Hillary Clinton Is an Inspiration to Nikki Haley” and “Haley Supported Paul Ryan’s Plan for Entitlement Reform, Threatening Medicare and Social Security” pic.twitter.com/EgFVJbiEui
— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) February 15, 2023
“In a 2012 interview with the New York Times, Nikki Haley said, ‘The reason I actually ran for office is because of Hillary Clinton,'” the Trump campaign said in an email blast.
The Trump campaign also pointed to past remarks in which Haley backed Ryan’s calls to reassess Medicare and Social Security funding and her calls for sending more military aid to Ukraine to stave off Russian invaders.
Trump has made brokering a deal between Russia and Ukraine to avert “WWIII” and safeguarding Medicare and Social Security a centerpiece of his GOP primary run.
His campaign also pointed to Haley’s past remarks in 2021, where she appeared to rule out challenging Trump if he vied for reelection.
“I would not run if President Trump ran, and I would talk to him about it,” she told a reporter at the time. “That’s something that we will have a conversation about at some point.”
That clip has been one of the few instances in which Trump directly lashed out against Haley himself, though he did so in a post to his Truth Social platform before she officially announced her campaign. “Nikki has to follow her heart, not her honor. She should definitely run,” he chided in the post.
From his Truth Social perch, Trump has sporadically fired off attacks against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who has consistently polled as his top GOP foe. His campaign’s onslaught against Haley indicates that it is taking the threat seriously.
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Haley announced her campaign in a video Tuesday and delivered an official speech from Charleston, South Carolina, to commence her campaign. She is set to hit the campaign trail in New Hampshire and Iowa to stump in a series of town hall-style events.
She is currently trailing behind Trump and DeSantis in a distant fourth place in the latest Race to the WH polling aggregate. DeSantis has not unveiled his 2024 intentions yet.
