Indian-American presidential candidate Nikki Haley has sharpened her attacks on Republican rival Donald Trump in an attempt to help her campaign gain momentum before the US elections.
Haley, who served as the UN ambassador under Trump, claimed the former president was mentally unfit to be running for the top post. Haley hit back at her former boss after the 77-year-old blamed her for failing to stop the January 6 insurrection of the US Capital in 2021 — an apparent name mix-up with then US House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Last night, Trump is at a rally…and he’s going on and on, mentioning me multiple times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capitol riots, why I didn’t handle January 6 better. I wasn’t even in DC on January 6. I wasn’t in office then,” Haley said.
So far, Haley has avoided direct attacks on Trump but as the election race heats up, she has taken on a more aggressive approach to Trump’s criticisms of her.
Too old to be President
While Republicans have long used US president Joe Biden’s old age to attack the Democrats and label him incapable of handling the top post, Haley has now trained her guns at Trump.
“Do we really want to have two 80-year-olds running for president, when we’ve got a country in disarray and a world on fire?” the 52-year-old said at a recent public meeting in New Hampshire, the second state after Iowa to cast ballots.
“He feels threatened”
While Trump has dismissed Haley’s chances to defeat him in the polls, the former US president has launched an all-out attack on his former ambassador.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump hit out at Haley’s Indian heritage, misspelling her first name “Nimarata” as “Nimrada”. Born to Indian immigrant parents, Haley was named Nimarata ‘Nikki’ Randhawa and goes by her middle name. She changed her surname after marriage.
“I know President Trump well. That’s what he does when he feels threatened. I don’t take these things personally,” a report in The Guardian quoted Haley. Haley’s campaign manager, however, dismissed Trump’s recent spate of insults as “temper tantrums”
“Love letters” to dictators
Haley also targeted Donald Trump’s relationships with strongmen like China’s Xi Jinping, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin — all leaders who have earned praises from the twice-impeached US president.
“Donald Trump praised Xi a dozen time after China gave us Covid. I was tougher on China and Russia than Trump ever was,” she said in a post on X.
According to a Reuters report, her campaign released a TV ad featuring the mother of a US student who died in 2017 after being held in North Korean custody.
Haley accused Trump of writing “love letters” to Kim after the student was recovered. “He is obsessed with these dictators,” she added.
