Haley attacks Trump after he made a big mix-up

Donald Trump might like to brag to the world that he recently aced a cognitive test, but some of the gaffs coming out of his mouth during his campaign speeches are making some think he might not be as with it mentally as he claims. 

One of those people was the former Governor of South Carolina and Trump’s opponent in the race for the Republican 2024 presidential nomination: Nikki Haley. Haley took Trump to task over mixing up Haley with Nancy Pelosi. 

While addressing a group of supporters during a campaign rally in New Hampshire, the former president went on what could only be described as a weird rant about all the things Nikki Haley didn’t do during the capitol attack. 

The former president claimed Haley was in charge of security for the capital on January 6th and repeated Haley’s name four times when it was clear that Trump was referring to Nancy Pelosi according to a report from Rolling Stone.

“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 stated. 

“We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want,” Trump continued. “They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.” These comments did sit well with Haley. 

Photo Credit: Wiki Commons By Tyler Merbler, CC BY 2.0

Haley was quick to chastise Trump for his remarks about her and specifically targeted what she perceived to be the former president's ineligibility to serve for another term in the White House because of his deteriorating mind. 

“Last night, Trump is at a rally and he’s going on and on mentioning me several 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,” CNN quoted Haley as saying.  

“They’re saying he got confused. That he was talking about something else. That he was talking about Nancy Pelosi. He mentioned me multiple times in that scenario,” the former South Carolina governor continued.

“The concern I have is – I’m not saying anything derogatory, but when you’re dealing with the pressures of a presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do it,” Haley added. 

Haley later went on ‘Face the Nation’ with Margaret Brennan where she continued to push the idea that the nation shouldn't be surprised that someone close to 80 years old in office would be declining mentally since it was “human nature.”

The former South Carolina Governor went on to tell Brennan that she didn’t know what to think about the bizarre incident. "I don’t know if he was confused, I don’t know what happened, but it’s enough to send us a warning sign.”

Haley wasn’t the only person to comment on what appeared to be a slip in Trump’s facade of mental stability. Political pundits from both sides of the aisle, as well as several politicians, pointed out the growing problems with Trump’s public appearances. 

However, the most poignant call out was from the President. “I don’t agree with Nikki Haley on everything, but we agree on this much: She is not Nancy Pelosi,” Biden wrote on Twitter that was posted with a campaign ad knocking Trump’s Haley/ Pelosi mixup. 

Biden has been at the center of the debate around age and mental fitness for office long before the problems started attaching themselves to Trump as well. In September 2023, polling data from Reuters and Ipsos revealed the issues Biden faced. 

Of the 4,413 US adults surveyed, 77% thought Biden was too old to be president while only 39% said he had the mental sharpness for a second term. These were numbers more worrying than they appear since 65% thought Biden was too old for office again. 

On the other hand, only 56% of respondents said that Trump was too old for a second term in office, while 54% said he was still mentally sharp enough for the job. Where or not that has changed since September 2023 has yet to be discovered.