Former South Carolina Gov. and Republican candidate for president Nikki Haley on Saturday suggested that former President Trump may not be “mentally fit” after he seemed to confuse her with ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., while discussing the Jan. 6 riot.
“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 Jan. 6 better. I wasn’t even in D.C. on Jan. 6. I wasn’t in office then,” Haley told supporters at a rally in Keene, New Hampshire, in anticipation of the state’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary Tuesday.
She continued, “They’re saying he got confused, that he was talking about something else, he’s talking about Nancy Pelosi. He mentioned me multiple times in that scenario.”
She said she didn’t want to say anything “derogatory” about Trump, “but when you’re dealing with the pressures of the presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this. We can’t,” she added, referring to suggestions that President Biden isn’t mentally fit.
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While speaking in Concord, New Hampshire, Friday evening, Trump told his crowd, “By the way, they never report the crowd on Jan. 6. Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley. Do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it?”
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Haley and Trump have stepped up their attacks on each other ahead of the New Hampshire primary. (Michael M. Santiago/Al Drago/Bloomberg)
“All of it, because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley is in charge of security,” he mistakenly said about Jan. 6. “We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people.”
Biden’s campaign was quick to post the clip on it’s X, formerly Twitter, “rapid response channel, with the caption: “Haley reacts to Trump’s delusional and confused rant last night where he suggested that she was Speaker of the House on January 6: He got confused. I question if he’s mentally fit.”
With three days left until the Republican primary in New Hampshire, Haley and Trump have stepped up attacks against each other.
Haley finished a narrow third to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Iowa, but has surged past him in polling for the Granite State, although Trump maintains a double-digit lead in most polls.
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Haley, 52, has repeatedly presented herself as a younger, fresher alternative to Biden, 81, and Trump, 77, and said there should be a mental fitness test for anyone holding office who is over 75.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Haley and Trump campaigns for comment.