After months of avoiding conflict with former President Donald Trump, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley attacked him directly on Saturday at a campaign event in New Hampshire.

In a speech on Friday, Trump repeatedly confused Haley with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, blaming her for not responding fast enough after the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots.

Haley has never served in Congress and was not in government at the time of the riot.

“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,” Haley said. “Why I didn’t handle January 6 better. I wasn’t even in D.C. on January 6. I wasn’t in office then.”

“They’re saying he got confused,” she added. “That he was talking about something else. That he was talking about Nancy Pelosi. He mentioned me multiples times in that scenario.”

Later, Haley rubbed salt in the wound by reiterating her concerns.

“My parents are up in age, and I love them dearly,” Haley said after the event in Peterborough, New Hampshire. “But when you see them hit a certain age, there is a decline. That’s a fact — ask any doctor, there is a decline.”

New Hampshire poll results released on the morning of January 18, showed that Trump was still ahead at 50%, while Haley went up two percentage points to 36%. DeSantis remained in a distant third place at 6%. Four percent were undecided and 2% did not want to answer and 1% chose somebody else.

The survey of 500 possible Republican primary voters had been conducted from January 16 to January 17. The margin of error is 4.4%.

Last week, Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., criticized Haley during an Iowa speech, calling her a robot who was created by the “deep state” to imitate conservative values.

Prior to the 2024 Iowa caucuses, Trump, while speaking to reporters, denied that he lost the Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz in 2016.

As he was leaving the Hotel Fort Des Moines, the former president declared that he won Iowa caucuses in both 2016 and 2020, and that Cruz illegally stole Iowa in 2016.

Trump was the 2020 Iowa caucus against former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, having won 97% of the vote.

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Article by Alessio Atria

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